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Reversed and Rendered, Opinion Issued July 10, 2003 Withdrawn; and Substituted Memorandum Opinion filed August 7, 2003.

 

 

In The

Fourteenth Court of Appeals

_______________

 

NO. 14-02-01276-CV

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UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS MEDICAL BRANCH

AT GALVESTON, Appellant

V.

PATRICIA M. HARRISON, MICHAEL C. MURPHY, BILLY G. ODOM,

B. ALAN ODOM, LISA ODOM, DAVID P. ODOM, TAMARA L. ODOM,

GARY B. BLACK, CHARLES H. McBRIDE, MIKE McBRIDE,

JOHNNA J. HIGGINBOTHAM, TAMARA STELLY, ROBERT THOMAS, CELESTE FONTENOT, RUTH AHMED, BARBARA ERWIN,

EMILY ERWIN HEBERT, THOMAS KELLEY ERWIN,

HENRY BLAKE ERWIN and SIDNEY BROWN, Appellees

________________________________________________________________________

 

On Appeal from the 122nd District Court

Galveston County, Texas

Trial Court Cause No. 02CV0820

________________________________________________________________________

 

          S U B S T I T U T E D   M E M O R A N D U M   O P I N I O N

 

            Appellees’ motion for rehearing is overruled, the opinion issued in this case on July 10, 2003 is withdrawn, and the following opinion is issued in its place.

            In this suit for mishandling willed bodies and remains, the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (“UTMB”) appeals the denial of its plea to the jurisdiction on the ground (among others) that the State has not waived its immunity from suit for the claims asserted against it in this case.  We reverse and render judgment for UTMB.

                                                                   Background

            Patricia M. Harrison, Michael C. Murphy, Billy G. Odom, B. Alan Odom, Lisa Odom, David P. Odom, Tamara L. Odom, Gary B. Black, Charles H. McBride, Mike McBride, Johnna J. Higginbotham, Tamara Stelly, Robert Thomas, Celeste Fontenot, Ruth Ahmed, Barbara Erwin, Emily Erwin Herbert, Thomas Kelley Erwin, Henry Blake Erwin and Sidney Brown (collectively, “appellees”) filed suit against UTMB alleging that, after they donated the bodies (the “bodies”) of their family members to UTMB to advance the cause of medicine, UTMB sold their family members’ body parts to private companies for profit and failed to assure that the ashes returned to appellees following cremation of the bodies were those, and only those, of each respective appellee’s family member.  Appellees asserted claims against UTMB for negligence, breach of contract, fraud, and intentional infliction of emotional distress and sought injunctive relief and damages for emotional distress and mental anguish.  UTMB filed a plea to the jurisdiction on the ground, among others, that the State did not waive immunity from suit for the claims asserted by appellees.  The trial court denied UTMB’s plea to the jurisdiction.[1]

                                                            Standard of Review

            A unit of state government is immune from suit unless the State consents to suit.  Dallas Area Rapid Transit v. Whitley, 104 S.W.3d 540, 542 (Tex. 2003).  Governmental immunity from suit defeats a trial court’s subject matter jurisdiction.  Id.  Therefore, in a suit against a governmental unit, a plaintiff must affirmatively demonstrate the court’s jurisdiction by alleging a waiver of immunity.  Id.  In reviewing a ruling on a plea to the jurisdiction based on governmental immunity, we determine from the facts alleged by the plaintiff and the evidence relevant to the jurisdictional issue whether the claim comes within a waiver of immunity.  Id.

                                                  Conventional Contract Claims

            UTMB’s first issue argues, in part, that the trial court lacked jurisdiction over appellees’ contract claims because the State has not waived its immunity from suit as to those claims.

            When the State contracts with a private party, it thereby waives immunity from liability, but not immunity from suit, which can be waived only by its express consent.  Catalina Dev., Inc. v. County of El Paso, 46 Tex. Sup. Ct. J. 636, 637 (May 8, 2003).  For the Legislature to waive the State’s sovereign immunity, a statute or resolution must contain a clear and unambiguous expression of the Legislature’s waiver of immunity.  Wichita Falls State Hosp. v. Taylor, 106 S.W.3d 692, 696 (Tex. 2003).

            In this case, appellees did not plead or offer evidence of any Legislative consent to sue in the form of a statute or resolution.  Instead, citing section 2260.002 of the Government Code, they contend that the statutory immunity UTMB asserts does not apply to a claim for personal injury arising from the breach of a contract.[2]  See Tex. Gov’t Code Ann. § 2260.002 (Vernon Supp. 2003) (stating that chapter 2260 does not apply to a claim for personal injury arising from the breach of a contract).

            Chapter 2260 of the Government Code retains sovereign immunity from suit in certain breach of contract cases against the State but provides an administrative process to resolve those claims.  Gen. Servs. Comm’n v. Little-Tex Insulation Co., 39 S.W.3d 591, 595 (Tex. 2001).  This administrative scheme applies to all written contracts for the sale of goods, services, or construction.  See Tex. Gov’t Code Ann. § 2260.001(a)(1) (Vernon 2000); Little-Tex, 39 S.W.3d at 595.  Absent a special statutory consent to sue, a party may not pursue a breach of contract claim against the State without participating in Chapter 2260’s administrative process.  Little-Tex, 39 S.W.3d at 598.  Therefore, the fact that Chapter 2260 does not apply to appellees’ claims (for personal injury) does not mean that the State has no immunity, but instead that Chapter 2260 is not available to appellees as a means to resolve their claims despite the State’s immunity.  Because appellees failed to plead, or otherwise establish, a consent to sue the State for their contract claims, the trial court had no jurisdiction over those claims.  Accordingly, we sustain UTMB’s first issue to that extent.

                                                    Special Relationship Claims

            UTMB’s first issue further contends that appellees’ remaining claims for mental anguish, although framed as tort claims, are, in reality, contract claims for which the State is similarly immune from suit.

            Because Texas does not recognize a general legal duty not to negligently inflict mental anguish, mental anguish damages are recoverable only for the breach of some other legal duty.  City of Tyler v. Likes, 962 S.W.2d 489, 494 (Tex. 1997); Boyles v. Kerr, 855 S.W.2d 593, 594 (Tex. 1993).  Therefore, negligently inflicted emotional anguish may be an element of recoverable damage where a defendant violates some other legal duty to a plaintiff,[3] depending, in part, on the nature of the duty breached.  Likes, 962 S.W.2d at 494.  With other exceptions not applicable to this case, mental anguish damages are recoverable for the breach of a duty arising out of certain special relationships, including a very limited number of contracts dealing with intensely emotional noncommercial subjects, such as preparing a corpse for burial.  See id. at 496; Restatement (Second) of Contracts § 353 cmt. a, illus. 3 (1981) (recognizing emotional disturbance as an element of recovery for breach of contracts for carriage or proper disposition of dead bodies).

            Where a defendant’s conduct would give rise to liability independent of the fact that a contract exists between the parties, the plaintiff’s claim may also sound in tort.  DeWitt County Elec. Co-op v. Parks, 1 S.W.3d 96, 105 (Tex. 1999).  Conversely, if the defendant’s conduct would give rise to liability only because it breaches the parties’ agreement, the plaintiff’s claim ordinarily sounds only in contract.  Id.  Thus, for example, a person who enters a neighbor’s property and cuts down trees with no contractual right to do so can be held liable in tort.  Id.  But if a contract spells out the parties’ respective rights about whether trees may be cut, then the contract, and not common law negligence, governs any dispute about whether or how trees may have been cut, i.e., even if any failure to comply with the contract resulted from negligence.  See id.  Therefore, the character of a claim, as between tort  and contract, is determined by the source of the duty breached, not whether the breach results from negligence (versus some other cause such as inability to perform or intentional conduct).

            In this case, except for their conventional contract claims (addressed in the preceding section), the causes of action asserted by appellees are all based on their alleged special relationship with UTMB arising from the contractual arrangement to donate the bodies.[4]  At the bottom of the first page of the “Will Form” constituting the parties’ agreement, the donor was asked to choose whether the ashes were to be (1) returned to the donor’s family, or (2) scattered in the Gulf of Mexico in an annual observance.  Apart from the duties created by this contractual stipulation, appellees have not cited and we have not found, any Texas case law recognizing a tort duty that UTMB owed to them and allegedly breached.  Because a claim for mental anguish damages is not itself a distinct cause of action (but only an element of recovery for the breach of another duty), and because UTMB is alleged to have breached no tort duty that is independent from its contractual duties, we conclude that appellees’ special relationship claims for mental anguish damages sound in contract rather than tort,[5] and are thereby subject to the requirement for consent (discussed in the preceding section) to overcome the State’s immunity from suit.  Because no such consent has been alleged or proved, we sustain the State’s first issue as to appellees’ special relationship claims.  Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the trial court and render judgment that UTMB’s plea to the jurisdiction be granted and that the case be dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.

                                                                        /s/        Richard H. Edelman

                                                                                    Justice

 

Judgment rendered and Substituted Memorandum Opinion filed August 7, 2003.

Panel consists of Chief Justice Brister and Justices Edelman and Guzman.


[1]           See Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code Ann. § 51.014(a)(8) (Vernon Supp. 2003) (allowing interlocutory appeal of denial of a plea to the jurisdiction by a governmental unit).

[2]           A footnote to appellees’ brief also contends that UTMB waived its immunity by accepting the benefits of its contracts with appellees in taking and using the willed bodies.  Although the Texas Supreme Court has alluded to the possibility that the State could waive its immunity from suit by conduct, it has yet to find such an equitable waiver of immunity or to prescribe the type of situation that might qualify for it.  See Catalina, 46 Tex. Sup. Ct. J. at 637.  As an intermediate appellate court, we defer to the Texas Supreme Court to decide when, if ever, and under what circumstances such a contention might become sustainable.

[3]           Thus, unlike tortious interference with contract and other separate tort causes of action that can arise in the context of a contractual relationship, a claim for mental anguish damages based on a special relationship is not a distinct cause of action, but merely an element of recovery for the breach of another legal duty.

[4]           Appellees have not asserted a “bystander” cause of action in this case.

[5]           Opinions discussing the special relationship cause of action sometimes describe it in terms that blur the distinction between contract and tort claims.  See, e.g., Pat H. Foley & Co. v. Wyatt, 442 S.W.2d 904, 906 (Tex. Civ. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 1969, writ ref’d n.r.e.) (“While the plaintiff’s pleadings additionally allege negligence, an initial basic allegation is that the defendant failed to perform according to its contractual responsibility.  This is not a claim for mental anguish founded solely in negligence.”).  However, if an independent negligence duty does not otherwise exist, we can find no authority or rationale for holding that a negligent breach of contract somehow transforms the associated contract claim into a tort claim or creates a new tort claim.