Justice Bonnie Lee Goldstein
The Dallas Court of Appeals has upheld a trial court’s take-nothing judgment in a workplace fatality case in which the jury found that the decedent was 51% responsible for his injury.
Maria de los Angeles Rodriguez, Individually and as the Administrator of the Estate of Gabriel Vela, Deceased, Amanda Lopez Vela and Jose G. Vela v. OGT, LLC, Delaware G&P, LLC, and EnLink Midstream Operating, LP (No. 05-23-00878-CV; October 27, 2025) arose from the death of Gabriel Vela, an apprentice electrician employed by OGT who was fatally electrocuted while working as a contractor at an Enlink facility. Plaintiffs asserted negligence and gross negligence claims against EnLink and OGT. Plaintiffs filed a TRCP 248 motion to determine issues and to exclude evidence, specifically requesting the trial court to determine whether Vela’s work legally required on-site supervision of a master or journeyman electrician under relevant provisions of the Occupations Code. OGT filed a response asserting that a statutory exemption applied. Additionally, OGT contended that Vela was an OGT employee at the time of the accident and covered under a worker’s compensation policy. Consequently, only Rodriguez, the administrator of Vela’s estate, not Vela’s parents, had a viable gross negligence claims against OGT.
After a hearing on the motion, the trial court signed an order granting Plaintiffs’ Rule 248 motion. Accordingly, it ordered the exclusion of any evidence controverting the trial court’s finding that Vela’s work statutorily required on-site supervision. OGT then filed its own Rule 248 motion arguing that a second statutory exemption applied. After a hearing on the motion, the trial court ruled that the second statutory exemption applied and vacated its previous order. At trial, Plaintiffs made an offer of proof that Vela was not “being supervised in accordance with Texas law” when the accident occurred and sought the trial court’s approval to question in the presence of the jury one of OGT’s retained experts about the relevant statutory supervision requirements. Despite the offer of proof, the trial court, consistent with its ruling on OGT’s Rule 248 motion, denied Plaintiffs’ request.
OGT’s designated expert, Forest Smith, maintained that Vela, working on an unassigned cabinet “removed isolation barriers,” thereby deviating from the work plan, resulting in his death. Additionally, he opined that Vela’s training was adequate for his tasks. Plaintiffs’ counsel again sought to “vigorously cross-examine” Smith, asserting that Smith’s testimony was dependent on the findings of other liability experts and conflicted with industry standards. OGT argued that Smith’s report predated any of the other expert reports, and that Plaintiffs’ counsel was attempting to broach extrinsic issues under the pretext of cross examination. The trial court sustained OGT’s objection and ruled that Smith’s testimony would be limited to the opinions he gave in court that had been noticed by Defendants. In the event jury found that the negligence of Enlink, OGT, and Vela proximately caused Vela’s injury, but 51% of the responsibility to Vela. The gross negligence claims failed, and a take-nothing judgment was entered against Plaintiffs. This appeal followed.
In an opinion by Justice Goldstein, the court of appeals affirmed. Plaintiffs asserted that harmful error occurred when the trial court denied their Rule 248 motion, granted OGT’s Rule 248 motion, and disallowed them from presenting evidence and argument regarding Vela’s supervision. They further asserted that the trial court committed harmful error when it precluded Plaintiffs from cross-examining OGT’s liability expert Smith and keeping out contrary opinion held by EnLink’s expert. These errors, they argued, affected the jury’s apportionment of responsibility between OGT, EnLink, and Vela.
The court commenced its analysis by “assum[ing] without deciding that Vela required supervision by a licensed journeyman or master electrician and no statutory exemption applied.” Pursuant to this assumption, the court assumed that the trial court erred as Plaintiffs asserted. The question then became whether the trial court’s error probably caused the rendition of an improper judgment under TRAP 44.1(a)(1). Plaintiffs contended that had the jury known that on-site supervision over Vela’s work and that if they could have cross-examined OGT’s expert concerning the opinion of the other experts, the jury would have found Vela less thatn 50% at fault. However, as Justice Goldstein noted, “conclusory statements of what the jury could have done… are insufficient to establish harm.” Plaintiffs failed to show with evidence or argument the basis for their argument beyond the “self evident truth.”
As the court continued, OGT’s alleged violation of the statute and administrative rules regarding supervision of apprentice electricians, had it been admitted, would have been submitted to the jury in the form of a negligence per se instruction. In that event the jury need only decide “(1) whether the statute was violated and, if so, whether the statutory violation was proximate cause of the injury” (citations omitted). Additionally, the court pointed out that negligence per se is not a separate cause of action, but “merely one method of proving a breach of duty, a requisite element of any negligence cause of action.” Though negligence per se may prove breach of duty, it is still for the jury to decide that the statutory violation proximately caused the injury. Consequently, the court could not conclude that the inclusion of a negligence per se instruction would have changed the jury’s decision to apportion 51% of the responsibility to Vela. The appellants tried another tack, asserting that they were entitled to a new trial under the cumulative error doctrine. Once again the court concluded that even assuming the trial court erred in this fashion, it did not result in the rendition of an improper judgment. The court of appeals affirmed.
TCJL Intern Satchel Williams researched and prepared the first draft of this article.
