## Facts

- Big Mack Trucking Company employed two truck drivers, Willie Lee Dickerson and Ormand Leday, who hauled sheet steel on truck-tractor flatbed rigs.
- In Waco, Leday parked his truck about 15–18 feet behind Dickerson’s truck and left it unattended.
- Dickerson stood behind his own trailer with his back toward Leday’s truck.
- Leday’s unattended truck rolled forward, struck Dickerson’s trailer, and crushed Dickerson between the vehicles, killing him.
- Dickerson’s beneficiaries received workers’ compensation benefits and then sued Big Mack and Leday for wrongful death, including a theory that Big Mack wrongfully withheld amounts from wages to pay workers’ compensation premiums, triggering a statutory cause of action.
- At trial, witnesses recounted Leday’s post-accident statements that his brakes had been problematic, made to a Big Mack vice president and to the investigating police officer.
- Big Mack objected that these statements were hearsay; the trial court admitted them.

## Issues

1. Whether Leday’s out-of-court statements about defective brakes were admissible against Big Mack under a hearsay exception.
2. Whether Leday’s statements to a Big Mack vice president or to the investigating officer qualified as authorized or vicarious admissions attributable to the corporation.
3. Whether Leday’s statements to the investigating officer qualified as spontaneous or excited utterances.
4. Whether Leday’s statements were admissible as statements against interest without a showing that Leday was unavailable to testify.
5. Whether admitting the statements, if erroneous, required reversal due to material prejudice.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Texas reversed the judgment against Big Mack and remanded.
- The court held that Leday’s statements were inadmissible hearsay and did not fit any proffered exception.
- The court rejected treating the statements as authorized or vicarious admissions of Big Mack because there was no proof Leday was authorized to speak for the company on the matter.
- The court rejected the excited-utterance theory for the statement to the investigating officer because the record did not show the statement was made under continuing stress from the घटना, including that it was made after the ambulance had left and without proof of emotional distress.
- The court rejected the statement-against-interest theory because the proponent failed to establish Leday’s unavailability to testify.
- Because the hearsay was material to liability, its admission was reversible error.

## Legal Principles

- An employee’s out-of-court statement is not admissible as a corporate party admission absent evidence the employee was authorized to make the statement on the employer’s behalf under the governing doctrine.
- The excited-utterance exception requires evidence that the statement was made while the declarant remained under the stress of excitement caused by the event; temporal separation and lack of proof of emotional condition can defeat the exception.
- The statement-against-interest exception requires a showing that the declarant is unavailable; the record must reflect a good-faith effort or other basis establishing unavailability, not mere absence at trial.
- Erroneous admission of material hearsay affecting liability warrants reversal.

## Conclusion

The Texas Supreme Court set aside the wrongful-death judgment because the trial court admitted an employee’s post-accident statements about brake problems without meeting the requirements for corporate admissions, excited utterances, or statements against interest, and the error was material to the verdict.


Big Mack Trucking Co. v. Dickerson, 497 S.W.2d 283 (Tex. 1973)