In re EI DU Pont DE Nemours and Company (2009)

Our plain-English summary of In re EI DU Pont DE Nemours and Company (Texas Supreme Court, July 3, 2009).

The estate and beneficiaries of Willis Whisnant sued E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company (DuPont) for wrongful death. They claimed Whisnant was exposed to asbestos fibers while working for DuPont and developed mesothelioma as a result. After a five-week trial, the jury did not find DuPont negligent, and the trial court entered a take-nothing judgment. Whisnant moved for a new trial, arguing the verdict was against the weight of the evidence and that jurors may have read biased newspaper articles. The trial court granted a new trial without giving a reason. The court of appeals denied DuPont's request for mandamus. The Texas Supreme Court, relying on its decision in In re Columbia Medical Center of Las Colinas, held that the trial court abused its discretion by not stating its reasons for overturning the verdict. It conditionally granted mandamus and ordered the trial court to specify its reasons. It declined to decide whether the grounds in Whisnant's motion would justify a new trial. Four justices dissented for reasons given in the Columbia dissent.

We wrote this summary from the court's opinion with the help of AI. It is not the court's wording, and it is not legal advice. The full opinion is below.

The decision

• Court: Texas Supreme Court
• Decided: July 3, 2009
• Docket: No. 08-0625
• Stage: Appeal from post-trial motions
• State: Texas

Outcome. The Texas Supreme Court conditionally granted DuPont's mandamus petition and directed the trial court to state its reasons for disregarding the jury verdict and granting Whisnant a new trial; it declined to review the new-trial grounds themselves.

What the court held. A trial court abuses its discretion when it sets aside a jury verdict and grants a new trial without specifically stating its reasons, following In re Columbia Medical Center of Las Colinas. The court does not presume the trial court limited itself to the grounds in the motion.

Issues decided: Wrongful Death and Survival, Trial Procedure and Discovery.

The people and their exposure

• Willis Whisnant: mesothelioma; died

The defendants

• E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company (employer)

The court's opinion

The text below is Google Scholar's copy of the court's opinion, a public record. Numbers in brackets, such as [*921], mark where each page of the printed reporter begins.

IN RE E.I. Du PONT de NEMOURS AND COMPANY, Relators.

No. 08-0625.

Opinion Delivered: July 3, 2009.

Supreme Court of Texas.

Justice JOHNSON delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Justice HECHT, Justice WAINWRIGHT, Justice BRISTER, and Justice WILLETT joined.

Justice O'NEILL filed a dissenting opinion, in which Chief Justice JEFFERSON, Justice MEDINA, and Justice GREEN joined.

PHIL JOHNSON, Justice.

At issue in this mandamus proceeding is whether the trial court abused its discretion by disregarding the jury verdict and granting a new trial without giving its reasons for doing so. Based on In re Columbia Medical Center of Las Colinas, ___ S.W.3d ___ (Tex. 2009), we hold that it did and grant relief. Willis Whisnant's estate and beneficiaries (collectively, Whisnant) sued E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company (DuPont) for wrongful death. Whisnant asserted that Willis was exposed to asbestos fibers while working for DuPont, which caused him to develop mesothelioma. After a five-week trial, the jury failed to find DuPont negligent and the trial judge entered a take nothing judgment. Whisnant filed a motion for new trial. The grounds were (1) the verdict was contrary to the weight of the evidence, and (2) some jurors may have read newspaper articles about the trial that Whisnant contended were biased toward DuPont. The trial court granted Whisnant's motion for new trial but did not state a reason for doing so.

DuPont sought, but was denied, a writ of mandamus from the court of appeals. In this Court, DuPont argues that the trial court abused its discretion by (1) granting a new trial without stating a reason for disregarding the jury verdict, and (2) granting the new trial motion in any event.

In In re Columbia, we held that a trial court acted arbitrarily and abused its discretion by not specifically and in a reasonable manner setting out the reasons it disregarded a jury verdict and granted a new trial. Id. at ___. We also held that the relator did not have an adequate remedy by appeal. Id. at ___. We granted mandamus relief directing the trial court to set out its reasons for disregarding the jury verdict. Id. Based on our holding in In re Columbia, DuPont is entitled to relief.

In addition to seeking the reasons for the trial court's disregarding the jury verdict in its favor, DuPont asks that we review the grounds Whisnant asserted in his motion for new trial to determine whether granting his motion on any of those grounds would have been an abuse of discretion. We decline to do so. We do not presume the trial court limited its consideration of grounds for granting the motion to only the grounds asserted in the motion; it may have granted the motion on other grounds. See id. at ___. Accordingly, we deny, without prejudice, any relief beyond directing the trial court to specify its reasons for granting the new trial.

Without hearing oral argument, we conditionally grant DuPont's petition for writ of mandamus. See TEX. R. APP. P. 52.8(c). The trial court is directed to specify the reasons for which it disregarded the jury verdict and

ordered a new trial. We are confident the trial court will comply, and the writ will issue only if it fails to do so. Justice O'NEILL, joined by Chief Justice JEFFERSON, Justice MEDINA, and Justice GREEN, dissenting. For the reasons expressed today in my dissenting opinion in In re Columbia Medical Center of Las Colinas, Cause No. 06-0416, I respectfully dissent.

Sources

• The opinion on Google Scholar
• Texas asbestos laws
• Texas asbestos exposure sites