The El Paso Court of Appeals has reversed a particularly egregious award of noneconomic damages in a default judgment.
Amazon.com Services, LLC v. Jessica G. Holguin (No. 08-25-00086; May 5, 2026) arose from a personal injury action brought by an Amazon employee, who alleged that she sustained injuries from moving heavy items at work. Amazon failed to answer the suit or appear. Plaintiff moved for a default judgment, and the trial court held a hearing on unliquidated damages. Based on Plaintiff’s testimony at the hearing, the trial court awarded $997,749.55 in economic and noneconomic damages. Amazon filed a restricted appeal on whether the evidence was legally and factually sufficient to support the damages award.
In an opinion by Chief Justice Salas Mendoza, the court of appeals affirmed in part and reversed in part. Because it failed to answer the suit, Amazon admitted to facts pleaded in Plaintiff’s petition, leaving the issue of unliquidated damages to the trial court. And in order to prevail in a restricted appeal, Amazon had to show that error was evident from the face of the record. The court thus approached each element of Plaintiff’s alleged damages to determine the sufficiency of the evidence presented to the trial court.
First, the court considered Plaintiff’s past medical expenses. At the hearing, the only evidence of those expenses was Plaintiff’s testimony that they totaled $16,000. Nevertheless, the trial court awarded $60,000, despite what Plaintiff said and despite the lack of evidence for the reasonableness and necessity of the expenses. In addition to that, Plaintiff failed to introduce into evidence affidavits supporting her claim for $303,849 in paid or incurred medical expenses. As to her future medicals, Plaintiff didn’t present anything other than her statement that her doctor told her she needed back and neck surgery. In view of the record, consequently, the court reversed the judgment’s award of past and future medical expenses.
Moving to Plaintiff’s claim for past and future lost earning capacity, the court held that her estimate of $4,650 in lost wages for the work she missed was sufficient to support the trial court’s award of that amount. But as to the judgment’s award of $116,064 in lost future earning capacity, Plaintiff failed to explain how much work she expected to miss, how long her recovery would take, whether there was any other type of work she could do, or what her earnings would be at her other job. Based on this testimony, the court observed, “the trial court could only guess what loss of future earnings would be.” The court thus reversed the trial court’s award of $116,064.
Everything else the court awarded was the usual litany of noneconomic damages. Past and future physical pain and mental anguish led the list with a total of $250,000. But once again, Plaintiff didn’t present any evidence of the amount of damages. That award was reversed. Next, the court awarded $20,000 for past and future disfigurement. Plaintiff said she had some slight scarring, but nothing about “where the scar was, how long it would last, or how it affects her.” She also didn’t “offer any evidence about the appearance, size, or location that she expects of future scarring.” But even if she had, there was no evidence to support the $20,000. The court reversed the award. Moving along, the trial court awarded a whopping $300,000 in past and future physical impairment. Here the court admonished the trial court for “simply pick[ing] a number and put[tting] in the blank.” Reversed.
After the court of appeals got through with this ridiculous judgment, the only thing left was $4,650 in lost wages. The court remanded to the trial court for a new trial on the remainder of the damages.
