§ 41.013.Judicial Review of Award

An unusual provision: a statute directing how appellate courts write.

An appellate court that reviews the evidence on liability for exemplary damages or the amount awarded shall state, in a written opinion, the court's reasons for upholding or disturbing the finding or award. The opinion must address the evidence or lack of evidence with specificity, as it relates to liability or amount, in light of the requirements of this chapter.

The requirement runs both ways — a court that upholds an award must explain itself as fully as one that reduces or reverses it. There is no short affirmance of an exemplary damages finding on this record.

The purpose is visible in the last clause. Exemplary damages turn on standards that are demanding but not arithmetic — clear and convincing evidence of an extreme degree of risk with subjective awareness. Requiring courts to work through the evidence against those standards in writing produces a body of reasoning about what satisfies them, which a one-line affirmance would not.

Subsection (b) exempts the supreme court with respect to its consideration of an application for writ of error — the discretionary decision whether to take a case, which is not a review of the evidence.