Werner Enterprises, Inc. v. Blake

• Court: Texas Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: Chief Justice Blacklock
• Citation: Werner Enterprises, Inc. v. Blake, 719 S.W.3d 525 (Tex. 2025)
• Docket Number: 23-0493
• Decision Date: 26 September 2025
• Parties: WERNER ENTERPRISES, INC. and Shiraz A. Ali, Petitioners, v. Jennifer BLAKE, individually and as next friend for Nathan Blake, and as heir of the estate of Zackery Blake, deceased; and Eldridge Moak, in his capacity as guardian of the estate of Brianna Blake, Respondents

719 S.W.3d 525

WERNER ENTERPRISES, INC. and Shiraz A. Ali, Petitioners,

v.Jennifer BLAKE, individually and as next friend for Nathan Blake, and as heir of the estate of Zackery Blake, deceased; and Eldridge Moak, in his capacity as guardian of the estate of Brianna Blake, Respondents

No. 23-0493

Supreme Court of Texas.

Argued December 3, 2024

OPINION DELIVERED: June 27, 2025

Rehearing Denied September 26, 2025

On Petition for Review from the Court of Appeals for the Fourteenth District of Texas, Meagan Hassan.

Andrew J. Upton, Lindsay Gorbach, Mayer LLP, Dallas, for Amicus Curiae Acuity Insurance.

David E. Keltner, Jacob DeKeratry, Kelly Hart & Hallman LLP, Fort Worth, for Amicus Curiae American Tracking Association.

Anthony Bruster, Baylor University School of Law, Sheila & Walter Umphrey Law Center, Waco, Pro Se.

Jeffrey A. Hall, Burke Law Group, PLLC, Washington, Jonathan D. Urick, U.S. Chamber Litigation Center, Washington, Marcella Burke, Burke Law Group, Houston, for Amicus Curiae Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America.

Elizabeth M. Fraley, Baylor University School of Law, Sheila & Walter Umphrey Law Center, Waco, Pro Se. Manuel Lopez, Robert M. Randy Roach Jr., Roach Newton, L.L.P., Houston, for Amicus Curiae Roach Newton, LLP.

Elizabeth Brabb, Michael W. Eady, Thompson, Coe, Cousins & Irons, LLP, Austin, for Amicus Curiae Schneider National Carriers, Inc.

E. Lee Parsley, Rebecca Helterbrand, Texans for Lawsuit Reform, Austin, for Amicus Curiae Texans for Lawsuit Reform.

Stephen Bosky, Bee Cave, for Amicus Curiae Texas Association of Defense Council.

George S. Christian, Texas Civil Justice League, Austin, for Amicus Curiae Texas Civil Justice League.

Juan Roberto Fuentes, Nicholas Van Cleve, The Fuentes Firm, P.C., Spring, for Amici Curiae Texas Trucking Association (TXTA) and Trucking Industry Defense Association (TIDA).

Amanda S. Hilty, Dale R. Mellencamp, Bair Hilty, P.C., Houston, Bill W. Sanford Jr., Dallas, Brian J. Cathey, Eva M. Guzman, R. Russell Hollenbeck, Thomas C. Wright, Wright Close & Barger, LLP, Houston, Christopher Carter, Claire Mahoney, Baker Botts L.L.P., Houston, Thomas Phillips, Baker Botts, LLP, Austin, for Petitioners.

Darrin M. Walker, Law Office of Darrin Walker, Kingwood, Eric Penn, The Penn Law Firm, PC, Jacksonville, Gene M. Zona Jones II, Harrison Davis Morison Jones, Beaumont, Zollie Steakley, Sweetwater, for Respondent Eldridge Moak, as Guardian of the Estate of Brianna Blake.

Darrin M. Walker, Law Office of Darrin Walker, Kingwood, Eric Penn, The Penn Law Firm, PC, Jacksonville, Gene M. Zona Jones II, Harrison Davis Morison Jones, Beaumont, Kelley Denney Peacock, The Penn Law Firm, Rusk, Michael A. Hate-hell, Haynes & Boone LLP, Austin, Zollie Steakley, Sweetwater, for Respondent Jennifer Blake, Individually and as next friend for Nathan Blake, and as heir of the Estate of Zachery Blake, deceased.

Chief Justice Blacklock delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Justice Devine, Justice Busby, Justice Young, and Justice Sullivan joined.

[1-3] A negligent actor incurs liability only for damages proximately caused by his negligence. Proximate cause is not established merely by proof that the injury would not have happened if not for the defendant’s negligence. Instead, proximate cause requires, among other things, proof that the defendant’s negligence was a substantial factor in causing the injury. The substantial-factor requirement incorporates “the idea of responsibility” into the question of causation. Lear Siegler, Inc. v. Perez, 819 S.W.2d 470, 472 (Tex. 1991) (quoting RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF TORTS § 431 cmt. a (AM. L. INST. 1965)). Thus, even if the defendant’s negligence is part of the causal chain of events that led to the injury, the defendant is not liable if his involvement was a mere “happenstance of place and time.” Id. Instead, the substantial-factor requirement means that liability falls only on a party whose substantial role in bringing about the injury is such that he is “actually responsible for the ultimate harm.” Transcon. Ins. Co. v. Crump, 330 S.W.3d 211, 224 (Tex. 2010). Liability does not fall on other participants in the causal chain whose actions merely “created the condition which made the injury possible.” IHS Cedars Treatment Ctr. of DeSoto, Tex., Inc. v. Mason, 143 S.W.3d 794, 803 (Tex. 2004).

These principles require judgment for the defendants in the terrible circumstances of this highway-collision case. The driver of a pickup truck traveling too fast on an icy, divided interstate highway suddenly lost control, hurtled across a 42-footwide median, and collided with the defendant’s 18-wheeler before the defendant had time to react. The collision killed one of the pickup’s occupants and severely injured three others. The plaintiffs proved at trial that, if not for the 18-wheeler’s speed, which was below the speed limit but still unsafe for the icy conditions, the accident likely would not have occurred or the injuries would have been less severe. We must conclude, however, that this proof is insufficient to establish that the defendant’s negligence was a substantial factor in bringing about the plaintiffs’ injuries. The defendant’s presence on the highway, combined with his speed, furnished the condition that made the injuries possible, but it did not proximately cause the injuries. Rather, the sole proximate cause of this accident and these injuries—the sole substantial factor to which the law permits assignment of liability—was the sudden, unexpected hurtling of the victims’ vehicle into oncoming highway traffic, for which the defendants bore no responsibility.

To assign legally significant causal force—that is, proximate causation—to any other human factor in this accident would be to distort the tragic reality of what transpired. This awful accident happened because an out-of-control vehicle suddenly skidded across a wide median and struck the defendant’s truck, before he had time to react, as he drove below the speed limit in his proper lane of traffic. That singular and robustly explanatory fact fully explains why the accident happened and who is responsible for the resulting injuries. Because no further explanation is reasonably necessary to substantially explain the origins of this accident or to assign responsibility for the plaintiffs’ injuries, the rule of proximate causation does not permit a factfinder to search for other, subordinate actors in the causal chain and assign liability to them. Compared to the central and defining fact about this accident’s cause—the pickup careening across a wide median into oncoming interstate-highway traffic—anything the defendant did or didn’t do to contribute to the possibility of such an accident is too attenuated to qualify as the substantial factor necessary for proximate causation.

Because our holding regarding proximate cause requires judgment for the defendants, we do not reach any other issues. The judgment of the court of appeals is reversed, and judgment is rendered in favor of the defendants.

I.

On the afternoon of December 30, 2014, Trey Salinas was driving his F-350 pickup with four passengers—Jennifer Blake and her three children—on I-20 eastbound near Odessa. That morning, the National Weather Service issued a winter weather advisory indicating that ice was likely to accumulate on the roads and cause hazardous driving conditions. The temperature dropped below freezing in Odessa around 9:30 a.m. At 2:50 p.m., the National Weather Service updated its advisory to say that freezing rain had begun and that temperatures would remain below freezing all afternoon.

Testimony from a driver behind Salinas suggested that Salinas was driving approximately 50-60 miles per hour when he lost control of his pickup at approximately 4:30 p.m. In the course of two to three seconds, Salinas’s F-350 left I-20 eastbound, crossed the 42-foot grassy median, entered traffic on I-20 westbound, and collided with a Werner Enterprises 18-wheeler driven by Shiraz Ali. Ali was a driver in training with Werner. His trainer, Jeffrey Ackerman, was in the 18-wheeler’s sleeper berth. Ali testified that as soon as he saw Salinas’s truck, he “pressed on the brake as hard as [he] could.” The plaintiffs’ expert witness testified that Ali’s split-second reaction to the oncoming vehicle “was appropriate to the conditions that he saw coming up ahead of him.” Nevertheless, the vehicles collided, killing one of the Blake children and severely injuring the three other Blake family members traveling with Salinas.

There is little question that driving conditions were hazardous on both sides of the road. In addition to the winter weather advisory, there was evidence that 18-wheelers parked off the side of the highway to get off the slick roads. There was also evidence that in the ninety minutes preceding the collision, there were several accidents—single-vehicle and multi-vehicle—on I-20 westbound and I-20 eastbound. At 3:00 p.m., a driver on I-20 westbound lost control, crossed the center median, and collided with a vehicle on I-20 eastbound approximately 4.5 miles from where Salinas and Ali collided. Also at 3:00 p.m., a driver elsewhere on I-20 westbound hit a concrete barrier. At 4:01 p.m., roughly 100 feet down I-20 westbound from that accident, another vehicle lost control and hit a concrete barrier. At 3:30 p.m., a car went off the road on I-20 eastbound. The officer responding to the 3:30 p.m. accident described the roads as “so icy I couldn’t drive very fast or I would have gone out of control.” While that officer was responding to the 3:30 p.m. accident on I-20 eastbound, a pileup occurred on I-20 westbound. A different driver—traveling on I-20 westbound approaching the pileup—hit her brakes to avoid colliding with the stopped vehicles. In doing so, she lost control of her car, which went into the center median, rolled, and entered traffic on I-20 eastbound, where it collided with an eastbound 18-wheeler....