The San Antonio Court of Appeals is preparing to hear a barbecue restaurant chain’s appeal of a Bexar County jury’s award of nearly $2.8 million in noneconomic and punitive damages for a minor injury that occurred when Plaintiff spilled two ounces of barbecue sauce in her lap.
Bill Miller Bar-B-Q Enterprises, LLC v. Genesis Monita (No. 04-25-00653-CV) arose from a personal injury lawsuit stemming from hot barbeque sauce. Plaintiff got some barbecue from a Bill Miller drive-through. Still sitting in her car, Plaintiff spilled hot barbecue sauce in her lap. She sought medical treatment for the resulting burn at a cost of $225. This didn’t stop Plaintiff from suing Bill Miller, asserting negligence and gross negligence. After a trial, the jury awarded about $30,000 in economic damages, $900,000 in noneconomic damages, and $1,890,000 in punitive damages. The trial court entered judgment on the verdict.
Bill Miller appealed, and the appeal is at the merits briefing stage. Bill Miller is challenging the sufficiency of the evidence to support the jury’s noneconomic damages award, its finding of gross negligence, and, if the court of appeals upholds the gross negligence finding, its punitive damages award.
The jury’s noneconomic damages award includes $300,000 for past and future physical pain and $500,000 for past and future mental anguish. As Bill Miller points out, Plaintiff didn’t visit the hospital (she went to a minor emergency care clinic), didn’t have surgery, and didn’t seek ongoing medical treatment (the jury at least acknowledged that and didn’t award anything for past or future disfigurement). Nobody offered testimony that Plaintiff experienced significant disruption of her daily life, though the jury presumably thought she had because it awarded, according to Bill Miller, 36 times the amount of damages her counsel asked for. At most, Bill Miller argues, the evidence shows that Plaintiff “was embarrassed and sad.” Hardly substantial disruption or “a high degree of suffering.”
The punitive damages award is likewise ridiculous. Plaintiff spilled some barbecue sauce and it burned her. She did claim to have suffered an injury from a prior spill, but no evidence of how that happened or what Plaintiff was doing when she allegedly spilled it. As Bill Miller points out, a finding of gross negligence requires evidence that Bill Miller had subjective knowledge that its conduct posed an extreme degree of risk and acted with conscious indifference anyway. Plaintiff produced none on any of the above elements. Even assuming that Plaintiff could prove gross negligence, was she entitled to almost $1.9 million? C’mon man.
For what it’s worth, TCJL plans to file an amicus brief with the court of appeals, which will urge the court to throw out the noneconomic and punitive damages awards altogether. That would still leave Plaintiff with $25,000 in economic damages for her trouble. After all, that’s more than 100 times the $225 her injury cost her for a bandaid, burn cream, and Advil.
