Tri v. J.T.T.
| Decision Date | 10 June 2005 |
| Docket Number | No. 03-0794.,03-0794. |
| Citation | 162 S.W.3d 552 |
| Parties | Chon TRI a/k/a Hien Dinh Nguyen and Theravada Buddhist Corporation, Petitioners, v. J.T.T. and M.T., Respondents. |
| Court | Texas Supreme Court |
Grant Parker Harpold, Hargis & Harpold, L.L.P., Houston, for Petitioners.
Richard L. Flowers Jr., Kevin McEvily, McEvily & Flowers, Michael O. Whitmire, Christopher Lynn Ashby, Ashby & Whitmire, Houston, for Respondents.
The ultimate question in this case is whether the trial court was required to render a judgment other than the one it did based on the jury's findings. There were two theories of liability — conspiracy and negligence. Conspiracy is a ground of recovery that has more than one element. Some but not all the elements of conspiracy were submitted to and found by the jury, and the trial court was not asked to and did not find the omitted elements. The trial court's judgment did not include any recovery on the basis of conspiracy. In these circumstances, the omitted elements of conspiracy are "deemed found by the court in such manner as to support the judgment."1 With regard to negligence, the trial court refused to impose individual liability on a corporation's agent and instead held the corporation liable for its agent's negligence. The record does not reflect that the trial court erred in doing so. We accordingly reverse the court of appeals' judgment and affirm the trial court's judgment, which awards damages for negligence but not conspiracy.
The plaintiffs in this case are sisters, J.T.T. and M.T. We have few facts before us because the sisters, who were the appellants in the court of appeals, did not designate any of the evidence adduced at trial for inclusion in the appellate record,2 nor did the defendants counter-designate any part of the record.3 The sisters designated only their live pleadings at the time of trial, a handwritten request for a jury question that is not relevant to the issues on appeal, and the clerk's and reporter's records regarding a number of post-verdict proceedings.
Based on the parties' recitation of facts in briefing before the court of appeals and this Court to which no challenge has been made,4 we know that J.T.T. and M.T. were raped and otherwise sexually assaulted by Dung Huu Khuat, a Buddhist monk, while they were guests at a Buddhist temple in Pomona, California. Khuat was convicted in California of rape and other sexual assaults of the sisters. They brought suit in Texas against Khuat, who did not appear at trial, and four other defendants: Theravada Buddhist Corp., which owned or operated the California temple at which the assaults occurred; Phap Luan Buddhist Culture Center, located in Houston; Ho Giac, a monk at the Houston-based Phap Luan Buddhist Culture Center; and Chon Tri, a monk at the California temple and an officer of the Theravada Buddhist Corp.
At the conclusion of a jury trial, the trial court rendered judgment in favor of J.T.T. and M.T. against some but not all defendants on some but not all legal theories the sisters had asserted. J.T.T. and M.T. appealed. The Houston-based Phap Luan Buddhist Culture Center and its clergyman Ho Giac also filed a notice of appeal, but they settled with the sisters prior to the court of appeals' disposition of the case. The only remaining parties to the appeal in this Court are J.T.T. and M.T., the Theravada Buddhist Corp., which operated the California temple, and one of the clergymen, Chon Tri.
We will analyze the jury's verdict and the trial court's pre-and post-trial determinations in greater detail later in this opinion, but to summarize, the jury was instructed that the "negligence" of Khuat, the rapist, caused "the occurrence in question," and the jury was asked to find whether the negligence of any of the other four defendants proximately caused "the occurrence in question." The charge permitted the jury to find negligence on the part of the operator of the California temple based on simple negligence, premises liability, or both. The jury found the two clergymen as well as the operator of the California temple negligent, but it failed to find the Houston-based Buddhist Culture Center negligent. The jury was not instructed that the rapist Khuat committed negligence per se, as the court of appeals' opinion states.5
The jury was then asked to apportion negligence among the defendants, including the rapist Khuat. It attributed 85% to Khuat, 5% to Chon Tri (the California-based clergy), 5% to Ho Giac (the Houston-based clergy), 5% to Theravada Buddhist Corp. (the operator of the California temple), and 0% to the Houston-based Buddhist Culture Center. The jury was then asked to decide the amounts that would compensate the sisters, and it awarded $488,000 to J.T.T. and $727,000 to M.T.
The jury was also asked to find whether any of the defendants were "part of a conspiracy that damaged" J.T.T. and M.T. The jury answered "yes" as to all defendants except the Houston-based Buddhist Culture Center. In response to other questions, the jury found that Khuat, the rapist, acted with malice and assessed $4,500,000 in punitive damages against him. The jury failed to find that any of the other defendants acted with malice.
The trial court's judgment reflects that the trial court found as a matter of law that two of the clergymen, Chon Tri and Ho Giac, "were acting within the course and scope of their employment with [the operator of the California temple] and [the Houston-based Buddhist Culture Center], respectively." The trial court then rendered judgment against the rapist Khuat for 85% of the damages found by the jury, against the Theravada Buddhist Corp. (the operator of the California temple) for 10% of the damages found by the jury, and against Ho Giac (the Houston-based clergy) for 5% of the damages. Pre-and post-judgment interest was awarded on each of the amounts assessed against these defendants. A take-nothing judgment was rendered in favor of the Houston-based Buddhist Culture Center although there were negligence findings against its employee Ho Giac, and a take-nothing judgment was also rendered in favor of Chon Tri (the California clergyman), although there were jury findings against him individually, and the corporation in which he was an officer, Theravada Buddhist Corp., was held vicariously liable for his negligence. The trial court's judgment imposed joint and several liability only for court costs. The judgment thus gave no effect to the conspiracy-related findings and did not impose liability on Chon Tri individually.
In the court of appeals, J.T.T. and M.T. challenged the trial court's failure to give effect to the conspiracy-related findings and the failure to render judgment against Chon Tri in his individual capacity. The court of appeals sustained these points and remanded the case to the trial court with instructions to reform the judgment by imposing joint and several liability against the three remaining defendants (the rapist Khuat, the operator of the California temple Theravada Buddhist Corp., and California clergyman Chon Tri) and to render judgment against Chon Tri individually for 5% of the sisters' damages.6 The court of appeals also directed the trial court to reduce Theravada Buddhist Corp.'s percentage of liability for the actual damages to 5% from 10%.7 For the reasons we consider below, the record before us does not reflect that the trial court erred. Accordingly, we reverse the court of appeals' judgment.
J.T.T. and M.T. contended in the court of appeals and maintain in this Court that the trial court committed errors of law that are apparent on the face of the record. They argued that since the trial court did not "upset" any of the jury's findings, the trial court was required to enter a judgment on the jury's verdict. We first consider the sisters' contentions regarding civil conspiracy.
J.T.T. and M.T. asserted in the court of appeals that the jury found a conspiracy and therefore the trial court was required to give effect to those findings and impose joint and several liability on the defendants. Although J.T.T. and M.T. asserted that no examination of the facts presented to the jury was necessary to sustain this point of error on appeal, and none of those facts were part of the appellate record, the sisters nevertheless proceeded to discuss in their briefing before the court of appeals facts they said established a civil conspiracy.
Theravada Buddhist Corp. (the operator of the California temple) and Chon Tri assert that the jury was not requested to and did not find that they agreed to accomplish an unlawful purpose, in this case sexual assault. They assert that based on the trial court's charge, all the jury could have found was an agreement to be negligent.
This Court has addressed the elements of an actionable civil conspiracy in at least three decisions within the last ten years.8 We have said those elements include:
(1) two or more persons;
(2) an object to be accomplished;
(3) a meeting of the minds on the object or course of action;
(4) one or more unlawful, overt acts; and
(5) damages as a proximate result.9
We have consistently held that there cannot be a civil conspiracy to be negligent.10 The court of appeals acknowledged this rule of law11 but concluded that it "does not entail that parties cannot conspire to cause injury by their negligence, for, in such a case, the gist of the conspiracy is not negligence, but the injury the conspirators specifically intend to cause."12 This statement is, with all due respect, circular. If parties agreed and intended to cause a particular injury and followed through with that agreement, then the injury would be due to an intentional act, not negligence. Similarly, it appears that the court of appeals did not fully understand what we said in Triplex and repeated in Ju...
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