At issue in this case is whether the court of appeals erred in rendering judgment for a plaintiff who received an adverse verdict and take-nothing judgment after a jury trial. When a party with the burden of proof loses at trial and asks an appellate court to render judgment in his favor, that party must show that the evidence conclusively established his entitlement to judgment. Because the court of appeals incorrectly applied this standard and Mathis did not conclusively prove his nuisance and trespass claims, we reverse in part its judgment and remand the case to the court of appeals to determine factual sufficiency issues raised below.
Dr. Lee Roy Mathis and H.E. “Buster” Barnes own adjoining property in Anderson County. Lake Creek runs through both tracts, and Mathis’s 1,254 acre property is located upstream from Barnes’s. Mathis maintained a wetlands complex on much of his land, which attracted beavers, waterfowl, and other wildlife. Barnes’s tract was used predominantly as a pasture. In September 2006, Barnes constructed an earthen road across the creek to more easily access his back pasture. To accommodate water flow in the creek, Barnes installed two twenty-eight-inch culverts, or drainage pipes, into the structure. In October 2006, Mathis noticed an elevated water level in the creek, which he suspected was caused by Barnes’s road. By November, Mathis noticed that creek water encroached onto his property, and he asked Barnes to modify the road. Barnes later installed an additional culvert into the structure. In December 2006, Mathis returned to his property after a twelve-day absence to discover that Barnes’s road was washed away. The flooding–and subsequent drainage–also affected over four hundred acres of Mathis’s property, damaging beaver dams, affecting the wildlife population, and draining the wetlands.
Mathis sued Barnes, alleging negligence, gross negligence, nuisance, and trespass. At trial, Mathis argued that Barnes’s road acted as a dam, causing a large amount of water to accumulate, which eventually destroyed Barnes’s road and damaged much of Mathis’s land. Barnes countered that an upstream event caused the flooding and produced evidence that Mathis’s property did not lose value and Mathis did not suffer non-economic damages. After a jury answered “No” as to each of Mathis’s causes of action, the trial court entered a take-nothing judgment.
