## Facts

- Quaker Petroleum Chemicals Company stored chemicals in plastic drums at a warehouse operated by Dave Edmonds in Hallettsville, Texas.
- Edmonds allowed neighboring couple Linda Tuttle (later Waldrop) and her husband to keep a meat freezer in the warehouse.
- In October 1990, Waldrop entered the warehouse, detected a sharp chemical odor, removed meat from the freezer, and later sought emergency treatment for respiratory complaints; the odor was traced to a leaking drum of Quaker’s chemical.
- After the spill, Quaker representative Rick Talley told neighbor Jane McCord that if anyone sued Quaker over the spill, Quaker would countersue; he made similar comments to Waldrop.
- Talley paid Waldrop and her husband for medical bills and inconvenience after they signed a letter stating they would not sue for damages directly or indirectly related to the spill.
- Several months later, Edmonds allegedly made comments in church settings referring to “sue-happy people,” suggested misfortunes were “punishment from God,” and spread gossip; McCord and Waldrop testified the comments caused embarrassment and emotional upset and led their families to change churches.

## Issues

1. Whether legally sufficient evidence supported the jury’s findings against Quaker for negligence, gross negligence, and intentional infliction of emotional distress (IIED).
2. Whether Talley’s litigation-related statements and Edmonds’s church-related remarks constituted “extreme and outrageous” conduct and caused “severe” emotional distress under Texas IIED standards.
3. Whether the trial court erred by denying Quaker’s motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict (JNOV).

## Decision

- The court of appeals reversed the judgment for Waldrop and McCord and rendered judgment that they take nothing from Quaker.
- The court held the evidence was legally insufficient to support liability for negligence, gross negligence, and IIED.
- The trial court therefore erred in denying Quaker’s JNOV.

## Legal Principles

- 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 is behavior so extreme in degree as to go beyond all bounds of decency and be utterly intolerable in a civilized community.
- Legal-sufficiency review asks whether more than a scintilla of evidence supports each challenged element when the evidence is viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict.
- A JNOV is proper when there is no evidence supporting one or more jury findings necessary to liability or damages.

## Conclusion

The court concluded that threats to countersue and negotiating a release for payment of expenses, as well as rude or hurtful church-related remarks and gossip, did not meet Texas’s demanding IIED requirements for extreme and outrageous conduct or severe distress; because the record also failed to support the negligence and gross-negligence verdicts, the court reversed and rendered judgment for Quaker.


Quaker Petroleum Chems. Co. v. Waldrop, 75 S.W.3d 549 (Tex. App.—San Antonio 2002)