Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. v. Garza

• Decision Date: 08 July 2005
• Docket Number: No. 01-1142.,01-1142.
• Parties: SOUTHWESTERN BELL TELEPHONE CO., Petitioner, v. David GARZA, Respondent.
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

Page 607

164 S.W.3d 607

SOUTHWESTERN BELL TELEPHONE CO., Petitioner, v. David GARZA, Respondent.

No. 01-1142.

Supreme Court of Texas.

Argued October 15, 2003.

Decided December 31, 2004.

Rehearing Denied July 8, 2005.

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Charles C. High Jr., El Paso, W. Carl Jordan, Houston, for Amicus Curiae.

Javier Aguilar, Asst. Atty. Gen., Austin, Mike A. Hatchell, Molly H. Hatchell, Tyler, Jorge C. Rangel, Corpus Christi, for Petitioner.

John Gregory Escamilla, Francisco J. Rodriguez, McAllen, Preston Henrichson, Katherine Driscoll Julia, Edinburg, for Respondent.

Justice HECHT delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Chief Justice JEFFERSON, Justice OWEN, Justice SMITH, Justice WAINWRIGHT, Justice BRISTER, and Justice MEDINA joined.

This is an action for a violation of the Anti-Retaliation Law, which states in part: "A person may not discharge or in any other manner discriminate against an employee because the employee has ... filed a workers' compensation claim in good faith...."¹ As the case comes to us, there are three principal issues. First: in charging the jury on liability, did the trial court err in deviating from the statutory language? Second: is there some evidence to support the jury's finding of a statutory violation? Third: is there clear and convincing evidence to support the jury's award of punitive damages? For this last issue, we adopt the rule stated in In re J.F.C.,² that in reviewing the legal sufficiency of evidence to support a finding that must be proved by clear and convincing evidence, an appellate court must "look at all the evidence in the light most favorable to the finding to determine whether a reasonable trier of fact could have formed a firm belief or conviction that its finding was true."³ By this standard of review, the punitive damages award here must be reversed. In all other respects we affirm the judgment of the court of appeals.⁴

I

David Garza and Luis Hernandez, two Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. ("SWBT") linemen with a long history of friction working together, were hanging cable on telephone poles in Harlingen on Thursday morning, October 20, 1994. No one else was present. Hernandez was working at the top of the poles from an aerial platform or "bucket" hoisted on the arm of a truck-mounted hydraulic lift. Garza was working on the ground. At one point, Hernandez dropped a rope with heavy metal hooks, narrowly missing Garza, who said nothing. A few minutes later, Hernandez lowered the bucket near where Garza had crouched down to cut a strand of wire used to hold the cable on the poles. It is not clear whether the bucket was lowered until it struck Garza in the head where he was, or whether he stood up and bumped his head on the bucket. What is clear is that Garza was very angry with Hernandez for moving the bucket so close, and hot words were exchanged. According to Hernandez, Garza also threw the strand of wire at him but hit the bucket.

Hernandez immediately left the job site and drove to the office of their "second-line" supervisor, Ruben Gonzalez, to complain of Garza's actions. Garza tried to call Rene Robles, the two linemen's direct, "first-line" supervisor, and then called Gonzalez, who sent another employee to bring Garza to the office. Gonzalez took written statements from both men and then interviewed them separately, asking Diana Vasquez, then vice president of the local union, to sit in and take notes. From her notes, it appears that Hernandez insisted that Garza be fired for threatening violence, but Gonzalez responded that Hernandez should see the company counselor "and get it off your chest". Vasquez's notes also reflect that Garza, in turn, complained that Hernandez was unsafe to work with, and that while Gonzalez agreed at least Hernandez had acted unsafely that morning, he stressed that Hernandez's actions were no excuse for Garza's threats or violence. At one point, according to Vasquez's notes, Gonzalez said, "David, all my life I have been fighting bullies." When Garza asked if that meant Gonzalez thought he was a bully, Gonzalez answered no but added, "[i]f you tell me you are going to kick my butt," "people can perceive it as a threat." Gonzalez finished by telling Garza that he and Hernandez could no longer work together and that he, too, should meet with the company counselor.

Garza did not complain of injury or request medical treatment until the following Monday, October 24, when he told Robles he had neck pains. Robles prepared a workers' compensation injury report form and took Garza to a doctor, who diagnosed muscle spasms and prescribed medication. The visit and medication cost $640.77, and Garza required no further medical attention.

SWBT contends in part that a decision to discipline Garza was made before Monday and thus could not have been in response to his compensation claim. The preceding Thursday, the day of the incident, after Hernandez and Garza had left Gonzalez's office, Gonzalez and Robles discussed what had happened. Both testified they knew that Garza, although a good worker, had earned a very poor safety record over the twenty years he had worked for SWBT, one of the worst Robles had seen among the employees who had worked for him. SWBT's files showed that Garza had been warned following a motor vehicle accident in 1987 "that his safety record was terrible and that a future accident of any nature, be it his fault or not, could result in his being taken off the payroll". Company files also showed that two years later, after another motor vehicle accident, Garza had been cautioned again that "if another problem arises that requires disciplinary action, you will be subject to termination." But Garza's record did not reflect an accident of any kind in the prior 27 months, and his 1993 performance appraisal on safety had rated him "satisfactory". On July 22, 1994 barely three months earlier, Robles had written Garza: "You made a commitment to be safe on the job and you did a good job. Keep up the good work."

Nevertheless, at trial Robles testified that on the day of the incident he recommended to Gonzalez that Garza be disqualified from driving or working on outside jobs because "[h]e was either going to end up killing himself or killing his partner or injuring the public." Gonzalez testified that he agreed and telephoned his superior in San Antonio, Wayne Rider, to report on the day's events. According to Gonzalez's and Rider's accounts of their conversation, Gonzalez told Rider he had had a long-term problem with Garza and was "fed up" with all of Garza's problems. Garza, he said, should no longer be allowed to drive. Although Rider supervised some 500 employees, he knew Garza from his poor safety record and told Gonzalez to put his recommendation in writing. Rider instructed Gonzalez to inquire whether Garza had threatened other employees and to request a manager outside the area to conduct an impartial investigation of the incident. But these steps, Rider testified, were "just kind of like making sure, dotting the i's and crossing the t's, so to speak." The decision to disqualify Garza from driving or working outside, he said, "was made on basically the 20th" and the next day, before Garza's worker's compensation claim of injury the following Monday, and "everything that happened after that was just window dressing".

Rider's testimony is somewhat at odds with other evidence. For one thing, he also testified that he did not make a final decision for some two weeks. For another, if a decision was made Thursday, it was not immediately implemented. After meeting with Gonzalez, Garza was sent to finish the job he and Hernandez had been working on, assisted by another employee. On Friday and Saturday, Robles continued to assign Garza other outside work because, he later testified, "[m]y boss [Gonzalez] had not given me any other direction", despite their conversation on Thursday. Meanwhile, Hernandez was given work cleaning out trucks.

Most inconsistent with Rider's testimony are the first three written reports of the Thursday incident, none of which reflected that Garza would or should be disciplined. On Tuesday or Wednesday, October 25 or 26, Robles telephoned Rider's clerk to provide her information for a standard form "flash report". The report she prepared stated that no investigation committee would be appointed and that the only action proposed to be taken was "positive discipline". Robles testified that he did not give the clerk this information, but Rider testified that the clerk would have completed the report as she was told, so that even if she added anything herself, it would only have been more than, not contrary to, what Robles told her.

About the same time, Gonzalez prepared his own report. The report stated that Gonzalez had interviewed Garza's fellow employees as Rider had instructed, and that the nine who were contacted "stated they have never seen David threaten anyone." Gonzalez's report concluded:

Because there [were] no witnesses to the incident and both employees have a history of not getting along with each other and submitted conflicting stories, it is impossible to substantiate the exact events of this incident.

As a result of my investigation, I feel that both employees contributed to this confrontation and both of them should be placed on a step of positive discipline for effectiveness [with] others and be reminded that they must learn to work with each other in the future. Gonzalez's report, it should be noted, was entirely consistent with the "flash report", including the parts Robles disavowed, and inconsistent with the decision the two claimed to have reached the day of the accident — to disqualify Garza from driving or outdoor work.

Contrary to one statement in the "flash report", Gonzalez did ask another manager to form a committee to investigate the incident, again as Rider had instructed. The committee of five made its report on October 27. The exact...