Case Citator › Rourke v. Garza

Rourke v. Garza

Is it still good law? What later courts have actually done to this case.

Overruled in part
Court
Supreme Court of Texas
Citation
530 S.W.2d 794
Decided
Confirmed treatments
1
Flagged citations read
29 of 29
Citing cases (total)
29
Treatment dates
2007
Overruled in part
A reviewed court has overruled part of this case’s holding. Ford Motor Co. v. Ledesma replaced the producing-cause definition approved in Rourke v. Garza for jury charges. Later Texas courts describe Ford as abrogating Rourke on that ground while continuing to cite its commercial lessor and indemnity holdings.
More on how this was screened

All 29 flagged citations have been read; the confirmed change is listed below.

Every treatment on this page is written from the citing opinion itself, with a verbatim quote, never copied from a commercial citator. A citation flagged by our screen but not shown here was read and found not to weaken this case.

29 later cases cite Rourke v. Garza; 29 of those citations sat close to treatment language and were flagged for reading, and all of them have been read. Citations that did not sit near treatment language were not flagged and were not read one by one, so a court that weakened this case without using any of that language would not appear here.

Relying on Rourke v. Garza?

This page shows what later courts did to it. Ask about your specific facts and see whether it still carries your argument, with citations you can check.

Treatments

Overruled in part

  • The Texas Supreme Court replaced Rourke’s producing-cause definition for jury instructions with a substantial-factor and but-for-cause definition.

    Ford Motor Co. v. Ledesma · Supreme Court of Texas · filed

    To say that a producing cause is “an efficient, exciting, or contributing cause that, in a natural sequence, produces the incident in question” is incomplete and, more importantly, provides little concrete guidance to the jury. ... Defining producing cause as being a substantial factor in bringing about an injury, and without which the injury would not have occurred, is easily understood and conveys the essential components of producing cause that (1) the cause must be a substantial cause of the event in issue and (2) it must be a but-for cause, namely one without which the event would not have occurred. This is the definition that should be given in the jury charge. ... Rourke v. Garza, 530 S.W.2d 794, 801 (Tex.1975)
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

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