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Convalescent Services3/14/1996
Affirmed and Opinion filed.
March 14, 1996.
O P I N I O N
This appeal concerns the legal sufficiency of the evidence supporting the jury's findings of gross negligence and punitive damages. In addition to eight points of error attacking the legal sufficiency of the evidence, appellant, Convalescent Services, Inc., d/b/a Bayou Glen Nursing Home ("Bayou Glen") complains in four additional points that it was denied substantive and procedural due process by the trial court's failure to comply with the standards set forth in Transportation Ins. Co. v. Moriel, 879 S.W.2d 10 (Tex. 1994). We affirm.
After hospitalization for pneumonia, Jacob Schultz, appellee, was transferred from Seven Acres nursing facility to Bayou Glen on July 5, 1991. At that time, Schultz was 77 years old and suffering from endstage Alzheimer's dementia. He was bedridden, incontinent, and his limbs were contracted. On admission, Bayou Glen's nursing staff noted that Schultz had a large, very dark red area on his coccyx and buttock, classified as a Stage I or II "decubitus ulcer" (pressure sore or bedsore). The ulcer worsened to at least Stage III when the skin surface broke open eleven days later, on July 16. On August 25, Schultz was hospitalized for aggressive treatment of the steadily deteriorating ulcer, which had increased in size and progressed to Stage IV, exposing the bone. Schultz underwent several surgical procedures, including debridement of dead tissue and placement of a surgical skin flap to cover the exposed bone. After a hospitalization of over three months, prolonged by infections after surgery, Schultz was released from Cy-Fair Hospital and re-admitted to Seven Acres Nursing Home.
Schultz's family contends that the nursing care at Bayou Glen was so substandard that it precipitated the deterioration of the ulcer, and that this deterioration and the resulting surgical intervention were preventable if proper care had been given. The family sued, alleging that Bayou Glen was negligent and grossly negligent. The trial took place in July 1994, shortly after the decision in Moriel. In the first stage of a bifurcated trial, the jury found Bayou Glen negligent, assessed damages at $380,000, and found Bayou Glen guilty of gross negligence as defined in Moriel. See Moriel, 879 S.W.2d at 23. The jury assessed $850,000 in punitive damages at the close of the second stage of trial. The trial court entered judgement in accordance with the verdict and denied Bayou Glen's post-verdict challenges to the judgment, including its requests for an oral hearing on its motion for new trial and for articulated findings.
Bayou Glen has paid the actual damages, interest thereon and costs, and has received a partial release and satisfaction of the judgment. It asks this court to reverse the gross negligence and punitive damages findings and render a take nothing judgment. The thrust of Bayou Glen's appeal is that there is no evidence that Bayou Glen had actual, subjective awareness of a serious risk to Schultz, that any of its acts or omissions would cause the decubitus ulcer to progress to Stage IV, or that it acted in conscious disregard of this risk. Bayou Glen contends that the Schultz family only provided evidence of ordinary negligence based on the failure to document care.
Standard of Review
In reviewing a "no evidence" or legal sufficiency of the evidence point, we consider only the evidence and reasonable inferences that tend to support the jury's finding, and we disregard all evidence and inferences to the contrary. Havner v. E-Z Mart Stores, Inc., 825 S.W.2d 456, 458 (Tex. 1992). After such a review, if there is more than a scintilla of evidenc
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