in Re: Patric Le June Harris ( 1993 )

In re Harris

IN THE

TENTH COURT OF APPEALS

No. 10-93-096-CV

     IN RE PATRIC LE JUNE HARRIS,

                                                                                              Appellant

From the 52nd District Court

Coryell County, Texas

Trial Court # 27,885

O P I N I O N

      Patric Le June Harris appeals the denial of his pro se Petition For Name Change. Harris, alleging that he is Muslim, sought a name change for enlightenment and religious purposes. His petition, however, also acknowledged that he was serving a fifteen-year sentence at the Hughes Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Institutional Division.

      The trial court denied the petition because the requested name change would be in violation of section 32.22 of the Family Code, as amended in 1991. Specifically, the court found that Harris was a convicted felon who had not been discharged for at least two years and that a name change would not be in the interest of the public. According to section 32.22:

(a) For good cause shown the court shall order a change of name for any person other than a person finally convicted of a felony as requested if it finds that the change is in the interest or to the benefit of the petitioner and in the interest of the public.

(b) A court may order a change of name for a person finally convicted of a felony if, in addition to the requirements of Subsection (a), the person has:

(1) received a certificate of discharge by the pardons and paroles division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice or completed a period of probation ordered by a court and at least two calendar years have elapsed from the date of the receipt of discharge or completion of probation; or

(2) been pardoned.

Before September 1, 1991, section 32.22 simply provided, "For good cause shown the court shall order a change of name as requested if it finds that the change is in the interest or to the benefit of the petitioner."

      In a single point of error Harris contends that Senate Bill 334, 72nd Leg., R.S., effective September 1, 1991, which amended sections 32.21 and 32.22 of the Texas Family Code, was unconstitutional because the caption to the bill failed to give the public fair notice of its contents.

      However, in the general election conducted on November 4, 1986, article three, section thirty-five, of the Texas Constitution was amended to read as follows:

Section 35. (a) No bill, (except general appropriation bills, which may embrace the various subjects and accounts, for and on account of which moneys are appropriated) shall contain more than one subject.

(b) The rules of procedure of each house shall require that the subject of each bill be expressed in its title in a manner that gives the legislature and the public reasonable notice of that subject. The legislature is solely responsible for determining compliance with the rule.

(c) A law, including a law enacted before the effective date of this subsection, may not be held void on the basis of an insufficient title.

      As a result, Texas courts no longer have the power to declare an act of the legislature unconstitutional due to an insufficiency of its caption. Accordingly, we overrule Harris' single point of error.

      We affirm the judgment.

                                                                                 BOBBY L. CUMMINGS

                                                                                 Justice

Before Chief Justice Thomas,

          Justice Cummings, and

          Justice Vance

Affirmed

Opinion delivered and filed September 8, 1993

Do not publish

asonable inference in favor of the non-movant. Nixon, 690 S.W.2d at 548-49. When necessary to establish a fact issue, the non-movant must present summary-judgment evidence. Westland Oil Dev. Corp. v. Gulf Oil Corp., 637 S.W.2d 903, 907 (Tex. 1982). Further, “[w]hen a trial court's order granting summary judgment does not specify the grounds relied upon, the reviewing court must affirm summary judgment if any of the summary judgment grounds are meritorious.” FM Props. Operating, Co. v. City of Austin, 22 S.W.3d 868, 872 (Tex. 2000).

b. The intervening third-party criminal conduct

      In their motions, the defendants assert that the targeted, deliberate nature of the intervening third-party criminal conduct rose to the level of a superseding cause. The defendants point to Palacio’s own recitation of the facts in his “First Amended Petition,” which is a live pleading, to establish this targeted, deliberate nature:

At approximately 1:15 a.m. on October 14, 1996, there was a knock on the apartment’s front door which awakened Mr. Morin. He went to the door and found that there were two men standing there, asking to speak with “Larry.” Mr. Palacio’s nickname is “Larry,” so Mr. Morin apparently assumed they were asking for him. Mr. Morin invited the men into the apartment, but they declined, saying they only wanted to ask “Larry” if he was interested in buying a ring. Mr. Morin turned around and saw Mr. Palacio walking toward him down the hallway. Mr. Morin walked past Mr. Palacio intent upon returning to bed. Upon arriving at the front door, Mr. Palacio did not recognize the men. One of the men asked Mr. Palacio if he would be interested in purchasing a ring and Mr. Palacio declined. Suddenly and with no warning, the other man shot him.

The defendants argue that this amounts to a judicial admission of the targeted, deliberate nature of the criminal conduct. See Houston First American Sav. v. Musick, 650 S.W.2d 764, 767 (Tex. 1983) (“Assertions of fact, not pled in the alternative, in the live pleadings of a party are regarded as formal judicial admissions. Any fact admitted is conclusively established in the case without the introduction of the pleadings or presentation of other evidence.”).

      Palacio counters with the argument that the defendants themselves supplied the trial court evidence that contradicts these admissions. In a deposition attached to the defendants’ motions for summary judgment, Morin testified that he saw only one man at the door, at first, and that a second man—“the one behind the wall”—shot Palacio. Palacio’s argument is that this evidence renders the judicial admissions evidentiary and no longer conclusive. See id. at 769 (stating that the record must be protected by the party relying on his opponent’s pleadings as judicial admissions of fact, through the objection to 1) evidence contrary to that admission or 2) the submission of any issue bearing on the fact admitted); see also Marshall v. Vise, 767 S.W.2d 699, 700 (Tex. 1989) (holding deemed admissions not conclusive if contradictory evidence introduced without objection). Palacio contends that this contradictory evidence supports a theory that while the first man might have known Palacio, the second man could have been a stranger who simply happened onto the opportunity of the open door and used this found opportunity to inflict violence. In other words, the man who shot Palacio was not targeting him at all, but merely, through the negligence of the defendants, had the chance to shoot Palacio and took it.

      A matter is conclusively established if ordinary minds could not differ as to the conclusion to be drawn from the evidence. Ridenour v. Herrington, 47 S.W.3d 117, 120 (Tex. App.—Waco 2001, pet. denied) (citing Triton Oil & Gas Corp. v. Marine Contractors & Supply, Inc., 644 S.W.2d 443, 446 (Tex. 1982)); accord Appleton v. Appleton, 76 S.W.3d 78, 83 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2002, no pet.). We conclude that the targeted, deliberate nature of the criminal conduct was conclusively established by the summary-judgment evidence.

c. Proximate cause

      Proximate cause has two elements: cause-in-fact and foreseeability. Cowart v. Kmart Corp., 20 S.W.3d 779, 783 (Tex. App.—Dallas 2000, pet. denied) (citing Travis v. Mesquite, 830 S.W.2d 94, 98 (Tex. 1992) (op. on reh’g)). Foreseeability requires that the defendant, “as a person of ordinary intelligence, should have anticipated the dangers his negligent act created for others.” Id.

      In Phan Son Van v. Pena, the Texas Supreme Court considered the burdens of the parties on summary judgment when proximate cause is at issue and the criminal conduct of a third party is alleged to be a superseding cause, extinguishing the liability of the defendant. Phan Son Van v. Pena, 990 S.W.2d 751, 752 (Tex. 1999). In Phan, the Supreme Court concluded that a “defendant who seeks to negate foreseeability [as an element of proximate cause] on summary judgment must prove more than that the intervening third-party criminal conduct occurred.” Id. at 754. The defendant must show the conduct rises “to the level of a superseding cause based on considerations like those in Section 442" of the Restatement of Torts. Id.; Restatement (Second) of Torts § 442 (1965). If the defendant does this, it has negated the ordinary foreseeability element of proximate cause. Id. At that point, the burden shifts to the plaintiff to raise a fact issue by presenting controverting evidence that, “despite the ‘extraordinary’ and ‘abnormal’ nature of the intervening force, there was some indication at the time . . . that such a crime would be committed.” Id. at 756.

d. Superseding cause — analysis

      To decide whether the criminal conduct in this case rises to the level of a superseding cause such that proximate cause is negated, the Restatement factors to be considered are:

 Cir. 2002) (recognizing Texas law).

      In considering the first factor, we find it instructive to examine our sister court’s analysis in Cowart. Cowart, 20 S.W.3d at 784-85. In that case, ammunition was negligently sold to two minors. The minors used the ammunition to load a gun, and the loaded gun was used by a third party to kill Richard Cowart. Id. at 782. The court concluded that, under the first factor of Section 442, the harm that occurred was not that which would have otherwise resulted from the defendant’s negligence. Id. at 784. At first glance, it would appear that someone getting shot with negligently sold ammunition is exactly the sort of harm that one would expect from the defendant’s negligent act. But the court distinguished the “kind of harm” that resulted from the “kind of harm” that would have been expected to result on the basis of who actually committed the ultimate harm. Id. at 785. Similarly, we conclude that the targeted, deliberate nature of the criminal conduct in the case before us distinguishes the harm that occurred from the kind of harm that one would expect to occur due to the defendants’ negligence. We would ordinarily expect the defendants to be liable for allowing the random criminal to find opportunity to exploit due to the defendants’ negligence. But we would not necessarily expect the defendants to be liable for the criminal who knows his victim’s name and targets him.

      Under the second factor, the fact that one or more third parties would deliberately go to a particular tenant’s apartment, knock on the door, ask for him by name, and then shoot him execution-style, is indeed extraordinary. Many citizens are concerned that they could be the victims of random crime, but the chances of such a targeted, deliberate act befalling the average citizen are minimal. We do not believe we have reached the point in our society where this conduct should be considered a normal circumstance.

      Third, the third-party criminal conduct in this case was clearly operating independently of any situation created by the defendants’ alleged negligence. In fact, it is unclear that the harm could have been avoided even if the defendants had flawlessly performed every function expected of them. For example, Palacio complained that the defendants did not stop the visitors and call his apartment to inform him of their presence. But when they came to his door, Morin willingly opened the door and exposed Palacio to them. There is no evidence that any advance warning would have changed the events as they occurred.

      Having established that the targeted, deliberate criminal conduct and the harm it inflicted were extraordinary in nature and not of the type generally contemplated by the duty of a landowner to protect against the criminal acts of a third party, the defendants satisfied the first three elements of Section 442. It is beyond dispute that the remaining factors, “which focus on the intervenor’s wrongful conduct and degree of culpability,” support the conclusion that the third-party criminal conduct in this case was a superseding cause of the harm inflicted upon Palacio. Phan, 990 S.W.2d at 756. We conclude that the summary-judgment evidence conclusively establishes that the criminal conduct in this case was a superseding cause of the injuries incurred such that proximate cause was negated.

e. Palacio’s burden

      Although proximate cause is negated through the establishment of the superseding cause, Palacio could still defeat the motions for summary judgment. This would require evidence that, despite the “extraordinary” and “abnormal” nature of the superseding cause, there was some indication to the defendants that the targeted, deliberate criminal conduct would occur. Phan, 990 S.W.2d at 756. This must be something more than the generalized foreseeability required to establish duty. See id. (stating that summary-judgment evidence was needed to show there was some indication at the time of the illegal sale that such a crime would be committed.); Cowart, 20 S.W.3d at 786 (stating that summary-judgment evidence was needed to show that the defendant should have been alerted to the fact that the minors who purchased the ammunition would put it in the hands of someone who would engage in the criminal conduct).

      Palacio relies on his summary-judgment evidence to establish an issue of foreseeability. But he points to no evidence that the defendants knew, or should have known, of the sort of threat facing Palacio. Without controverting evidence, there is no fact issue on foreseeability.

IV. Other Issue

      Because we affirm, we do not reach Palacio’s additional issue about whether the trial court abused its discretion in granting defendants leave to join responsible third parties.

V. Conclusion

      We conclude that the defendants negated proximate cause and Palacio did not present evidence that raised a genuine issue of fact that the defendants could have foreseen the events that resulted in his injury. Consequently, we affirm the trial court’s judgment.

                                                                         BILL VANCE

                                                                         Justice

Before Chief Justice Davis,

      Justice Vance, and

      Justice Gray

Affirmed

Opinion delivered and filed May 21, 2003

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