City of San Antonio, Petitioner v. Charles Pollock and Tracy Pollock

Summary

The Texas Supreme Court held that the Pollocks' expert testimony was legally insufficient to support their personal-injury awards: engineer Daniel Kraft's opinion that the family was chronically exposed to 160 ppb of benzene had no basis in the record, his own data placing such concentrations only inside a sealed monitoring well, and oncologist Dr. Mahendar Patel's causation opinion rested on studies involving exposures more than 200 times higher than the level claimed. The Court reaffirmed that conclusory testimony cannot support a judgment even when admitted without objection, while testimony admitted without objection may count as probative unless its basis is absent or provides no support. It further held there was no evidence the City intended the property damage required for a compensable taking under article I, section 17 of the Texas Constitution, so governmental immunity barred the property-damage claims, and it reversed the court of appeals and rendered judgment that the Pollocks take nothing. Justice Medina, joined by Justice O'Neill, dissented, arguing the City's analytical-gap complaints were unpreserved reliability challenges requiring a trial-court objection, and would have affirmed a judgment capped at $250,000 under the Tort Claims Act.