The Supreme Court of Texas considered Tuesday whether Texas’s punitive-damages cap should be measured separately for each defendant or against the total economic award when multiple defendants and multiple plaintiffs are involved.

Respondent counsel told the court the jury’s findings — including a $175,000 award for the reduction in property value — are supported by intentional-nuisance and conspiracy findings that can support exemplary damages. "There is just 1 set of damages, the $175,000 for the reduction in value of the property," respondent counsel said, arguing the jury’s intentional-findings supply a constitutional predicate for exemplary damages.

Justices repeatedly returned to the statutory text in Chapter 41, asking whether the phrase "exemplary damages awarded against the defendant may not exceed 2 times the amount of economic damages" requires courts to look to the economic damages awarded against each defendant or to the joint award. One justice framed the statutory question plainly: should "what you look at for calculating the ratio" be the amount of economic damages awarded against the defendant or the overall economic award?

Petitioner cautioned that the cap’s text and the court’s precedent (including Horizon-related decisions) support individualized consideration of reprehensibility and punitive caps; counsel urged the court to avoid a rule that would effectively impose joint-and-several punitive liability by multiplying a single total award across multiple defendants.

Both sides acknowledged additional checks exist outside the statute: appellate precedents and constitutional review under BMW-type reprehensibility factors. Respondent urged that established appellate practice (cases cited in argument) has sometimes allowed per-defendant calculations that treat joint-and-several liability as part of the relevant economic base; petitioner argued federal due-process limits and prior state precedent counsel for individualized assessment.

The court heard extended questioning about the practical consequences if a plaintiff group recovered a single economic award against multiple defendants: "if there were 10 defendants, $10,000,000 awarded against all of the defendants together, each defendant could be liable for $2,000,000," a justice observed, noting the potentially large aggregate exposure.

Argument concluded without a decision; the court did not indicate a timetable for ruling.