Texas Supreme Court Intercepts $100M Nuclear Verdict in Werner v. Blake, But Punts on Admission Rule

Houston, Tex. (June 30, 2025) - The Texas Supreme Court tackled one of the highest monetary judgments against a motor carrier in Texas history when it delivered its opinion in Werner v. Blake ___ S.W. 3d ___ (Tex. 2025)(Cause No. 23-0493) on June 27, 2025. The Texas high court ruled in favor of Werner Enterprises, Inc., and its driver, Shiraz A. Ali, reversing and dismissing a jury verdict of over $100 million.

However, in addition to the momentous reversal, practitioners in Texas were hoping that the Court would provide a definitive holding adopting the Admission Rule in the state. Unfortunately, the Texas Supreme Court majority avoided addressing the Rule. Under the Admission Rule, employers could not be held liable for direct negligence on derivative claims such as negligent hiring, training, and retention once they have stipulated that an employee was acting in the course and scope of their employment at the time of a negligent act. 

The logic behind the Admission Rule is that, once an employer accepts liability for their employee’s negligence, any evidence of negligent hiring practices, training or retention becomes irrelevant. Defendants argue that allowing these claims to proceed simply gives juries the opportunity to “double dip” on liability questions in jury charges. It is a long standing debate that many were hoping would be given clarity with the Werner decision. Multiple groups from both sides of the aisle filed amicus briefing to the Court, in the hopes of swaying a decision one way or the other. The final opinion, however, leaves the question open for future cases. With that said, a concurring opinion issued by Judge Young and joined by Judge Huddle makes a very persuasive argument for adopting it in the future.

In this tragic case, Jennifer Blake and her three children were traveling in a vehicle operated by Trey Salinas on Interstate 20 near Odessa in icy conditions. Due to the ice, Salinas lost control of his vehicle, crossed a 40- foot center median, and crashed into a truck operated by Ali, who was operating an 18-wheeler in the course and scope of his employer, Werner Enterprises, Inc. At trial, the jury found Werner 70% liable, Ali 14% liable, and Salinas 16% liable, awarding an astonishing verdict in excess of $100 million. Werner appealed.

The 14th Court of Appeals in Houston affirmed the trial court judgment, with two dissents. Werner Enters., Inc. v. Blake 2021 WL 3164005 at *1 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2023). Despite hazardous winter conditions and evidence that Ali was driving well below the posted speed limit both dissents agreed with the majority that there was sufficient evidence for a negligence finding against Ali. One of the dissents, however, would have held that the trial court erred in submitting Question 1 on the jury verdict form – which involved direct negligence claims of liability against Werner. This first dissent would have remanded for a new trial. The second dissent would have rendered a take nothing judgment as to Werner based on the Admissions Rule, which is the idea that an employers admission that an employee was acting in the course and scope of his employment generally prevents plaintiffs from pursuing derivative theories of negligence against the employer. They would have remanded the remaining claims against Ali to the trial court for a new trial.

In its June 27 opinion, the Texas Supreme Court found that what occurred was “a mere happenstance of place and time”, Citing Lear Siegler, Inc. v. Perez, 819 S.W.2d 470, 472 (Tex. 1991)(quoting RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF TORTS § 431 cmt. a (AM. L. INST. 1965)). Engaging in a lengthy analysis of proximate cause, the majority refused to find fault with Werner or Ali. “This awful accident happened because an out-of-control vehicle suddenly skidded across a wide median and struck the defendant’s truck, before he had time to react, as he drove below the speed limit in his proper lane of traffic,” the Court stated. “That singular and robustly explanatory fact fully explains why the accident happened and who is responsible for the resulting injuries. Because no further explanation is reasonably necessary to substantially explain the origins of this accident or to assign responsibility for the plaintiffs’ injuries, the rule of ‘proximate causation’ does not permit a fact finder to search for other, subordinate actors in the causal chain and assign liability to them.”

The Court emphasized that the pick-up truck’s loss of control was the “central and defining fact” of the case. “[The pick-up driver] losing control and hurtling across the median was the substantial factor in bringing about the injuries,” the Court wrote. “The presence of Ali’s truck on the other side of the median at that precise moment was merely ‘the condition that made the harm possible.’ ” The Court reasoned that anything Ali did – or failed to do – was “too attenuated to qualify as the substantial factor necessary for proximate cause.’” As such, the Texas Supreme Court concluded that no reasonable jury could assign responsibility to anyone other than the pick-up truck driver. The Supreme Court therefore reversed the judgment and dismissed all claims against Werner and Ali.

To the disappointment of Texan practitioners, the Texas Supreme Court bypassed the Admission Rule question completely, because it held that the proximate cause issue required a reversal and rendering in favor of the defendants. There remains, however, strong support for future adoption of the Admission Rule in Texas, as evidenced in the concurring opinion of Justice Young. In the concurrence, Justice Young writes:

"By way of background, the eponymous “admission” in the so-called “admission rule” is that of an employer that has been sued for its employee’s tort. The rule provides that when such an employer admits or stipulates that the employee was indeed acting within the course and scope of his employment, it is pointless—or worse—to submit wholly derivative claims to the jury. See, e.g., McHaffie v. Bunch, 891 S.W.2d 822, 827 (Mo. 1995) (“[O]nce the agency relationship was admitted, it was error to permit a separate assessment of fault [as] to [the] defendant . . . based upon the ‘negligent entrustment’ or ‘negligent hiring’ theories of 3 liability. It was also error to admit evidence on those theories.”).

Assuming that claims like negligent entrustment, training, hiring, and supervision are proper in the first place, they are derivative in the sense that they cannot succeed on their own but require a predicate finding of negligence by the employee. But finding that the employee was negligent should be the end of the matter given the employer’s admission that it would be on the hook. All the derivative claims are thus wholly beside the point, so there is no valid reason to submit such claims to the jury or make them the basis for discovery. It is this principle that animates the admission rule. See, e.g., RESTATEMENT (THIRD) OF AGENCY § 7.05, reporter’s note b (2006) (observing that, “n at least some jurisdictions, if an employer stipulates that an employee acted within the scope of employment in committing a tort, the employer is not subject to liability” for derivative claims like negligent hiring or supervision). Consistent with that understanding, our courts of appeals have generally taken it as a given that, at least when only ordinary negligence is alleged, respondeat superior and negligent-entrustment claims are mutually exclusive theories of recovery, so acceptance of respondeat superior with respect to the alleged negligence of the tortfeasor leaves no room for derivative-negligence claims."