## Facts

- Rhonda Bruce, Linda Davis, and Joyce Poelstra worked in GTE Southwest’s supply department at its Nash, Texas facility under supervisor Morris Shields.
- The employees alleged Shields engaged in a prolonged pattern of humiliating, abusive conduct, including daily profanity, yelling, screaming, cursing, and physical intimidation (including “charging” at them).
- Shields had been the subject of prior harassment complaints at another GTE facility; GTE investigated but imposed no formal discipline at that time.
- After renewed complaints in 1992, GTE investigated and issued Shields a reprimand, but the conduct continued.
- The employees sought medical treatment for emotional distress they attributed to Shields’s conduct.
- The employees sued GTE for intentional infliction of emotional distress (IIED) based on Shields’s workplace conduct; a jury awarded damages, and the trial court entered judgment on the verdict.

## Issues

1. Whether the Texas Workers’ Compensation Act provided the exclusive remedy, barring an employee IIED claim against a subscribing employer for workplace-caused emotional injuries.
2. Whether the evidence was legally sufficient to prove IIED, including “extreme and outrageous” conduct and “severe” emotional distress.
3. Whether and on what theories GTE could be held liable for Shields’s conduct (including imputation of a supervisor’s intent and employer knowledge and response).
4. Whether evidence outside the limitations period and expert opinion on “outrageousness” was admissible and, if erroneous, harmful.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Texas affirmed the judgment for the employees.
- The court held the Workers’ Compensation Act did not bar an IIED claim predicated on intentional or reckless conduct attributable to the employer.
- The court held the evidence supported the jury’s finding that the conduct was extreme and outrageous and caused severe emotional distress.
- The court concluded the record supported employer responsibility for the supervisor’s conduct under Texas standards for corporate liability for intentional torts.
- The court permitted consideration of pre-limitations conduct as context for timely acts and found no reversible harm from the challenged expert testimony in light of the overall record.

## Legal Principles

- Workers’ compensation exclusivity generally covers work-related injuries caused by negligence, but it does not bar common-law recovery for intentional torts by or attributable to the employer.
- IIED requires proof that: (1) the defendant acted intentionally or recklessly; (2) the conduct was extreme and outrageous; (3) the conduct caused emotional distress; and (4) the distress was severe.
- “Extreme and outrageous” conduct must go beyond all possible bounds of decency and be intolerable in a civilized community; mere insults, indignities, threats, annoyances, and petty oppressions are insufficient.
- IIED is a limited tort; it is not available when emotional distress is only incidental to some other tort and not the intended or primary consequence of the defendant’s conduct.
- In assessing outrageousness in employment settings, courts may consider the pattern, duration, and power imbalance created by supervisory authority.
- Evidence preceding the limitations period may be admitted to provide context for timely acts when offered to show an ongoing pattern rather than to recover for time-barred conduct.

## Conclusion

The Texas Supreme Court upheld a jury verdict for employees subjected to sustained, humiliating, and intimidating supervisory abuse, holding that workers’ compensation exclusivity did not preclude an IIED claim based on intentional or reckless conduct attributable to the employer and that the evidence supported findings of extreme and outrageous conduct and severe emotional distress.


GTE Sw., Inc. v. Bruce, 998 S.W.2d 605 (Tex. 1999)