Texas Home Management, Inc. v. Peavy

• Decision Date: 31 October 2002
• Docket Number: No. 00-0889.,00-0889.
• Citation: 89 S.W.3d 30
• Parties: TEXAS HOME MANAGEMENT, INC., Petitioner, v. Edith Carol PEAVY and O.L. Peavy, individually and on behalf of The Estate of Elizabeth Ann Peavy, deceased, Respondents.
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

Page 30

89 S.W.3d 30

TEXAS HOME MANAGEMENT, INC., Petitioner, v. Edith Carol PEAVY and O.L. Peavy, individually and on behalf of The Estate of Elizabeth Ann Peavy, deceased, Respondents.

No. 00-0889.

Supreme Court of Texas.

Argued April 18, 2001.

Decided October 31, 2002.

Rehearing Denied December 12, 2002.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Iris H. Robinson, Jay D. Hirsch, Hirsch & Robinson, Philip Andrew Sellers, Fred L. Shuchart, Tina V. Snelling, Tina Snelling & Associates, Houston, for Petitioner.

Karl B. Brock, W. Burl Brock, Brock & Brock, San Antonio, for Respondents.

Justice RODRIGUEZ delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Justice ENOCH, Justice HANKINSON, Justice O'NEILL, and Justice JEFFERSON join.

In this case, we must decide whether and under what circumstances an intermediate care facility for the mentally retarded owes a duty of care to a person murdered by a resident of the facility. The trial court granted the facility a summary judgment on the ground that no duty existed. The court of appeals affirmed in part and reversed and remanded in part. 7 S.W.3d 795. Because the intermediate care facility in this case did not establish as a matter of law that it had no duty, we affirm the court of appeals' judgment in part.¹

I.

Anthony Tyrone Dixon lived with his mother in Houston until he was fourteen. By that time, charges of criminal mischief, evading arrest, theft, and burglary had been filed against him. Rather than prosecute Dixon, the juvenile authorities referred him to the Mental Health and Mental Retardation Authority of Harris County (MHMR) for evaluation. Following diagnostic testing, MHMR determined that Dixon was mildly retarded. MHMR also concluded that he was not dangerous to himself or others. After a hearing, the district court made similar findings and ordered Dixon committed to MHMR's custody for placement. MHMR selected Lakewood House in Nacogdoches, a facility owned and operated by Texas Home Management, Inc. (THM).

Lakewood House is an intermediate care facility, certified under state and federal law to provide services to persons with mental retardation who are eligible to receive medicaid benefits. 42 U.S.C. §§ 1396-1396v; 25 TEX. ADMIN. CODE § 419.207. Under the Medicaid program, the federal government provides matching funds at a percentage of state expenditures for individuals like Dixon, while requiring the provider to comply with federal regulations to qualify for these matching funds. See 42 U.S.C. § 1396r-3. Under this program, THM, doing business as Lakewood House, entered into a provider agreement with the State, under which THM agreed to provide for Dixon's care, training, and treatment, and further agreed to follow all applicable federal and state statutes and rules governing intermediate care facilities. See 42 C.F.R. §§ 483.410-.480; 25 TEX. ADMIN. CODE § 419.211.

From July 1991 until his arrest for murder in May 1994, Dixon lived at Lakewood House, attending Nacogdoches public schools. During this period, he frequently traveled by bus to Houston to visit his mother on weekends and holidays. Federal regulations encouraged these visits. See 42 C.F.R. 483.420(c)(5) ("The facility must promote frequent and informal leaves from the facility for visits, trips, or vacations."). His mother usually requested these visits, which were authorized by an interdisciplinary team² at Lakewood House.

Dixon continued to have behavioral problems while living at Lakewood House. He was verbally and physically abusive to Lakewood House staff, other residents of the facility, and other students at his school. While at school, he was involved in seven separate assaults, resulting in penalties ranging from detention, alternative school, suspension, and referral to law enforcement. In one incident, a fellow student was taken to a hospital for stitches after Dixon cut him with a piece of glass. The record further suggests that Dixon also assaulted other residents at Lakewood House.

Dixon engaged in more extreme criminal conduct during his visits to Houston. During one Christmas vacation there, he was charged with burglary of a habitation. During his spring break vacation in 1993, he was charged with, aggravated assault when he brandished a hand gun after being caught trespassing on a construction site by the project's supervisor. During the 1993 Thanksgiving holiday, he was apprehended after breaking into an apartment. The week before that, he had been caught shoplifting at a Wal-Mart store. Twice he took cars without the owner's permission. On one of these occasions, he was apparently involved in a high-speed chase. On the other, he damaged his mother's car, prompting her to ask THM to discontinue his home visitation "until she cooled off." Finally, on the weekend of May 15, 1994, just two months after he had damaged his mother's car, Dixon shot and killed Elizabeth Ann Peavy at a Houston convenience store, then stole her car. Although the evidence is conflicting, Dixon's mother testified that she was not expecting him to visit on the weekend of the murder.

After their daughter's tragic death, the Peavys sued THM, alleging that THM was negligent and grossly negligent in breaching its duty to supervise and control Dixon. THM moved for summary judgment, asserting that it owed no duty to prevent Dixon's criminal conduct. The trial court agreed and granted summary judgment, but the court of appeals reversed and remanded. 7 S.W.3d 795. It held that "a special relationship existed between THM and Dixon sufficient to impose a duty on THM to control Dixon's behavior." Id. at 800. The court of appeals further concluded that fact questions had been raised about THM's "duty to use reasonable care in determining whether Dixon was allowed to continue unsupervised home visits." Id.

II.

Whether a duty exists is a question of law for the court. Greater Houston Transp. Co. v. Phillips, 801 S.W.2d 523, 525 (Tex.1990). The question of legal duty is a multifaceted issue requiring us to balance a number of factors such as the risk and foreseeability of injury, the social utility of the actor's conduct, the consequences of imposing the burden on the actor, and any other relevant competing individual and social interests implicated by the facts of the case. Otis Eng'g Corp. v. Clark, 668 S.W.2d 307, 309 (Tex.1983); see also 1 EDGAR & SALES, TEXAS TORTS & REMEDIES § 1.03[2][b] (2000). Although the formulation and emphasis varies with the facts of each case, three categories of factors have emerged: (1) the relationship between the parties; (2) the reasonable foreseeability of harm to the person injured; and (3) public policy considerations. See Graff v. Beard, 858 S.W.2d 918, 920 (Tex.1993); Greater Houston Transp., 801 S.W.2d at 525.

A.

Generally, there is no duty to control the conduct of others. Greater Houston Transp., 801 S.W.2d at 525. This general rule does not apply when a special relationship exists between an actor and another that imposes upon the actor a duty to control the other's conduct. Id.

THM contends that it did not have sufficient control over Dixon to create a special relationship. THM submits that Dixon's only "relationship" was with MHMR, in whose care, custody, and control Dixon had been placed by the court. THM asserts that it agreed only to provide room, board, and treatment for Dixon and that it never agreed to assume responsibility for his behavior. Thus, THM concludes, it had no more right to control Dixon than did the doctor in Van Horn v. Chambers, 970 S.W.2d 542, 546-47 (Tex. 1998), in which we concluded that no special relationship existed.

The Peavys allege, however, that through its contract with MHMR, THM agreed to train, treat, care for, and control Dixon, and that these responsibilities created a duty to certain members of the public. The Peavys further allege that THM was negligent in failing to supervise and discipline Dixon, specifically by allowing him "to continue to go on leave to Houston while experiencing increasing behavioral problems." The Peavys allege that THM knew that Dixon needed close supervision to keep him out of trouble, and yet it allowed him to visit his mother in Houston, where it knew such supervision was lacking.

THM asserts that it had limited authority to control Dixon because the State retained legal custody and both federal and state regulations encouraged his frequent visits to his mother's home in Houston. We agree that federal and Texas Department of Human Services regulations generally favor such visits, although they do not expressly require them. 42 C.F.R. § 483.420(c)(5) ("The facility must promote frequent and informal leaves from the facility for visits, trips, or vacations."); 16 Tex. Reg. 3525, 3527 (1991) (formerly 40 TEX. ADMIN. CODE § 27.201(c)(6))("No participating facility may engage in any of the following restrictive practices ... prohibiting an individual from leaving the facility at will except as provided by state law."). The fact that THM no longer had custody or control of Dixon at the time of the murder does not address whether THM negligently failed to exercise control over Dixon prior to his release to Houston.

THM's interdisciplinary team approved Dixon's visit to Houston. THM failed to produce summary judgment evidence that conclusively established that it had no choice but to release Dixon to Houston for a therapeutic visit. Although state and federal regulations encouraged therapeutic visits for Dixon to see his family in Houston, there is no summary judgment evidence that such state and federal regulations required THM to approve such visits when they presented an unreasonable risk to the safety of others. The dissent contends that state regulations mandated that facilities allow residents an unlimited number of therapeutic visits as well as some extended visits. However, the regulations that the dissent relies on apply only to the conditions for which the intermediate care facility will be...