Background
Sunbal Zafar and Sadaf Saghier were gastroenterologists at the same medical practice. Zafar alleged that Saghier struck her in the face and reported the alleged assault to police and the Texas Medical Board. Saghier denied touching Zafar. Police arrested Saghier for felony aggravated assault, but prosecutors later reduced and ultimately dismissed the charge. The medical board also dismissed Zafar’s complaint for lack of evidence.
After Zafar sued Saghier for assault, Saghier counterclaimed for malicious prosecution and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Evidence at trial described Saghier’s arrest, night in jail, loss of professional privileges, psychiatric treatment, and anxiety over her livelihood and medical career. The jury found for Saghier on both counterclaims and awarded $537,978 in compensatory damages and $462,022 in exemplary damages, for a total judgment of $1 million.
The Court’s Holding
The court held that the evidence was legally insufficient to support $15,095 awarded for Saghier’s criminal-defense attorney’s fees, a point Saghier conceded. It also held that no evidence showed a reasonable probability that Saghier’s compensable mental anguish would persist in the future, requiring reversal of the $255,004 future-mental-anguish award.
The court upheld the $255,004 past-mental-anguish award, finding detailed and corroborated evidence of Saghier’s distress and a rational basis for the amount. After removing the unsupported damages, it recalculated the statutory cap and reduced exemplary damages to $280,754. The court rejected Zafar’s jury-charge challenge as unpreserved and held that any error in allowing three objected-to leading questions was harmless. It affirmed the remainder of the judgment as modified.
Key Takeaways
- Detailed testimony, psychiatric records, and evidence of disrupted sleep, anxiety, humiliation, and professional consequences sufficiently supported the past-mental-anguish award.
- Proof of past mental anguish alone does not establish future mental anguish; a plaintiff must show a reasonable probability that compensable distress will persist.
- When compensatory damages are reduced on appeal, an exemplary-damages award must be recalculated under the applicable statutory cap.
Why It Matters
The decision illustrates the different evidentiary burdens for past and future mental-anguish damages under Texas law. Even extensive proof of severe past distress will not support future damages without evidence that the distress probably will continue.
It also underscores the need to preserve objections to broad-form damages questions at the charge conference. Because Zafar did not timely object to the charge structure, she could not obtain appellate relief on her theory that the compensatory-damages question commingled claims.