## Facts

- Geoffrey Dugger and Joel Martinez spent an evening consuming alcohol, marijuana, and black-tar heroin; Martinez also had “cheese” (black-tar heroin mixed with Tylenol PM).
- Martinez became unresponsive and appeared to be choking.
- Dugger contacted Mary Ann Arredondo (Martinez’s mother) rather than immediately calling 911; she urged him to call emergency services.
- Arredondo alleged Dugger delayed seeking medical assistance and failed to tell paramedics that Martinez had used heroin.
- Martinez died within roughly two hours of ingesting heroin.
- Arredondo sued Dugger under Texas wrongful-death and survival statutes for negligence tied to the delay in seeking care and the failure to disclose heroin use.

## Issues

1. Whether Texas’s Chapter 33 proportionate-responsibility scheme leaves room for the common-law unlawful-acts doctrine to operate as a complete bar to recovery in wrongful-death and survival actions.
2. Whether, when the claimant’s illegal conduct does not fall within Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code § 93.001, that conduct must be handled through comparative fault rather than an absolute defense.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Texas affirmed the court of appeals’ judgment reversing summary judgment for Dugger and remanded for further proceedings.
- The court held the common-law unlawful-acts doctrine is not available as an affirmative defense to completely bar recovery in personal-injury and wrongful-death actions under the Chapter 33 scheme.
- The court concluded that illegal conduct not covered by a statutorily recognized affirmative defense (including § 93.001) must be treated through apportionment of responsibility rather than a categorical bar.

## Legal Principles

- Chapter 33 reflects legislative intent to allocate responsibility by percentage of fault, displacing common-law plaintiff-conduct doctrines that operated as complete bars unless the Legislature expressly preserved a bar.
- The common-law unlawful-acts doctrine cannot coexist with Chapter 33 in personal-injury and wrongful-death suits; a plaintiff’s illegal conduct is considered, if at all, through proportionate responsibility.
- Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code § 93.001 provides a limited, statutory affirmative defense (including felony-conviction and attempted-suicide circumstances); outside those circumstances, illegal conduct does not automatically bar recovery.
- A defendant is not entitled to summary judgment solely because the injured party was engaged in illegal conduct contributing to the injury; comparative responsibility governs.

## Conclusion

The Supreme Court of Texas held that Chapter 33 abrogates the common-law unlawful-acts doctrine as a complete defense in wrongful-death and survival actions, requiring unlawful conduct outside § 93.001 to be addressed through proportionate responsibility and remanded for further proceedings.


Dugger v. Arredondo, 408 S.W.3d 825 (Tex. 2013)