Werner Enterprises v. Blake: Wiping the Slate Clean on the Admission Rule and Derivative Negligence in Texas

I. Introduction

This commentary analyzes Justice Evan Young’s concurring opinion in Werner Enterprises, Inc. and Shiraz A. Ali v. Jennifer Blake, et al., No. 23‑0493, Supreme Court of Texas (opinion filed June 27, 2025).

The underlying case arises from a tragic motor‑vehicle collision involving a Werner tractor‑trailer driven by employee Shiraz Ali and another driver, Salinas. Members of the Blake family suffered catastrophic injuries, including the death of a child, Zackery Blake. The plaintiffs obtained a substantial jury verdict that rested not only on the driver’s negligence (for which Werner admitted vicarious responsibility) but also on “derivative” corporate‑negligence theories, such as negligent hiring, training, and supervision of Werner employees other than the driver. They also pleaded gross negligence, seeking exemplary (punitive) damages.

On appeal, the Fourteenth Court of Appeals (Houston) considered, en banc, whether a defendant employer who admits that its employee was acting in the course and scope of employment may still be subjected to separate “direct” negligence claims, often called derivative negligence (negligent entrustment, negligent hiring, negligent training, negligent supervision, etc.). This is the so‑called “admission rule”—a doctrine embraced in a number of jurisdictions and in several Texas courts of appeals, but rejected by the Fourteenth Court in this case.

The Texas Supreme Court ultimately resolved the case on an antecedent issue: it held that tort liability may not be imposed as a matter of law. Because liability failed at that threshold, the Court did not need to—and did not—decide whether Texas recognizes the admission rule. Justice Young authored a concurrence, joined by Justice Huddle, to explain the consequences of the Court’s limited holding and to provide an extended, pointed discussion of the admission rule, its rationale, and its interaction with claims for gross negligence and punitive damages.

The concurrence therefore serves two main functions:

1. It clarifies that the court of appeals’ en banc rejection of the admission rule has no precedential force after the Supreme Court’s disposition; and
2. It sketches a roadmap indicating that a majority of the Court may well, in a suitable future case, adopt a robust version of the admission rule, with a tightly controlled (if any) exception for gross negligence and punitive damages.

Although the concurring opinion is not itself binding precedent on the admission rule, it is a high‑signal piece of guidance about how the current Court is likely to analyze employer liability when vicarious liability has been admitted, particularly in trucking and commercial‑transport cases.

II. Summary of the Opinion

A. The Majority’s Limited Holding (as Described in the Concurrence)

Justice Young begins by noting that the Court resolves the case on a threshold tort‑law question: tort liability may not be imposed as a matter of law. In other words, under the controlling legal standards and the evidence presented, the defendants cannot be held liable in tort at all. That disposition—essentially a no‑liability ruling as a matter of law—obviates the need to address any additional issues, including:

• Whether the admission rule is part of Texas law; and
• Whether any gross‑negligence‑based exception to that rule exists.

Because the Supreme Court reverses on the antecedent liability issue and renders judgment, all of the court of appeals’ analysis on the admission rule is swept aside:

“With respect to that issue, therefore, today’s decision wipes the slate clean, and the court of appeals’ discussion of the admission rule is no longer a precedent even in that court.”

This is an important procedural/precedential clarification: the en banc opinion of the Fourteenth Court of Appeals, which rejected the admission rule and adopted a gross‑negligence “exception” to it, cannot be cited as controlling authority on that issue going forward.

B. Justice Young’s Concurrence

Justice Young explains why he writes separately:

• The admission rule was extensively briefed by the parties and amici and was a major reason the Court granted review.
• The Fourteenth Court’s rejection of the rule cries out for review and appears, to him, seriously flawed.
• Although the Court cannot resolve the admission rule in this case (because it is unnecessary to the outcome), he wants to sketch some observations to assist future litigants and lower courts.

The concurrence proceeds to:

1. Explain the admission rule and its rationale, heavily relying on both extra‑jurisdictional authority (McHaffie v. Bunch) and existing Texas courts of appeals’ precedent.
2. Illustrate how the lack of such a rule in this case apparently distorted the jury’s allocation of fault, almost doubling Werner’s share of responsibility.
3. Address the proposed gross‑negligence exception to the admission rule and express skepticism that a mere allegation of gross negligence should be enough to defeat the rule.
4. Endorse, in strong terms, Justice Wilson’s dissenting opinion below, treating it as the most persuasive framework currently articulated in Texas concerning the admission rule.

Justice Young emphasizes that he is not prejudging the precise contours of any future admission rule, but he is candid: Justice Wilson’s position strikes me as highly convincing, and absent equally convincing contrary arguments in a future case, he is inclined to adopt the rule and apply it in the way Justice Wilson described.

III. The Admission Rule and the Case’s Role in Texas Law

A. What Is the “Admission Rule”?

The “admission rule” is a doctrine governing the relationship between:

• Vicarious liability under the doctrine of respondeat superior (employer responsibility for an employee’s negligence committed in the course and scope of employment); and
• Derivative negligence claims against the employer, such as negligent hiring, negligent entrustment, negligent training, and negligent supervision.

At its core, the rule says:

When the employer admits (or stipulates) that the employee was acting in the course and scope of employment at the time of the tort, the plaintiff may not proceed with wholly derivative claims such as negligent hiring, negligent entrustment, or negligent supervision for the same injury.

The logic is that such derivative negligence theories are redundant. They add nothing substantive once the employer has already conceded that it will stand behind the employee’s negligence. In that posture:

• If the employee is negligent, the employer is liable anyway via respondeat superior.
• If the employee is not negligent, then derivative claims premised on his negligence necessarily fail.

As Justice Young puts it, respondeat superior is a way to hold an employer responsible without having to show the employer’s separate negligence. When the employer says “yes, we are responsible for our employee’s negligence,” the plaintiff should have to accept ‘yes’ for an answer.

The admission rule thus aims to eliminate pointless (and potentially prejudicial) litigation over corporate hiring, training, or supervision when those theories cannot change the measure of compensatory damages or the fact of liability.

B. How the Rule Mattered in Werner

Werner invoked the admission rule in a motion for directed verdict at trial. It had already admitted that its driver was acting within the course and scope of employment. It argued that, under the admission rule, the plaintiffs’ derivative claims—negligent hiring, training, and supervision—should not be submitted to the jury and should not be the basis for discovery or evidentiary presentation.

The trial court rejected that argument, allowed those theories to go to the jury, and permitted substantial evidence about Werner’s corporate practices, including conduct by employees remote in time and place from the accident.

The result, highlighted by Justice Young, is striking. The jury was asked in one question to apportion fault between the two drivers:

• 45% fault to Werner’s driver Ali; and
• 55% fault to Salinas (the other driver).

But the jury was later given another question incorporating a negligent hiring, training, and supervision claim against Werner. It was instructed to consider acts of Werner employees other than the driver, some of which were quite remote from the accident in time and place. In that later question, the jury assigned:

• 70% fault to Werner; and
• 14% fault to Werner’s driver Ali.

Because Werner had admitted vicarious liability for Ali’s conduct, its total share of responsibility became:

• 70% (corporate negligence) + 14% (driver negligence) = 84% attributed to Werner; and
• Only 16% left for Salinas.

As Justice Young observes, the inclusion of derivative‑negligence claims in the charge nearly doubled Werner’s percentage of responsibility. This, in his view, illustrates:

1. The potential for jury confusion and distortion of fault apportionment when derivative theories are pursued despite a vicarious‑liability admission; and
2. The risk that emotionally charged evidence about corporate practices, though formally irrelevant to compensatory damages once liability is admitted, can inflate damages or skew liability assessments.

IV. Analysis

A. Precedents and Authorities Cited

1. McHaffie v. Bunch, 891 S.W.2d 822 (Mo. 1995)

McHaffie is the leading Missouri Supreme Court decision articulating what Texas courts and commentators often refer to as the “admission rule” or “McHaffie rule.” In McHaffie, once the defendant admitted that its driver was acting within the scope of employment, the court held it was error:

• To permit a separate assessment of fault against the employer on negligent entrustment or negligent hiring theories; and
• To admit evidence on those theories, since they were rendered immaterial by the admission.

Justice Young quotes the key passage:

“[O]nce the agency relationship was admitted, it was error to permit a separate assessment of fault [as] to [the] defendant … based upon the ‘negligent entrustment’ or ‘negligent hiring’ theories of liability. It was also error to admit evidence on those theories.”

McHaffie thus encapsulates the main concern: derivative corporate negligence adds nothing to the case once vicarious liability is conceded, and its evidence is more likely to prejudice than to enlighten the jury.

2. Restatement (Third) of Agency § 7.05, Reporter’s Note b (2006)

The concurring opinion notes that the Restatement (Third) of Agency acknowledges the admission rule as a recognized doctrine in some jurisdictions:

“[I]n at least some jurisdictions, if an employer stipulates that an employee acted within the scope of employment in committing a tort, the employer is not subject to liability” for derivative claims like negligent hiring or supervision.

This indicates that the admission rule is not an eccentric aberration but part of a broader national trend in handling employer‑liability claims.

3. Existing Texas Courts of Appeals Cases

Justice Young stresses that several Texas intermediate appellate courts have already recognized some form of the admission rule—or at least the mutual exclusivity of certain direct/derivative negligence theories once respondeat superior is accepted:

• Atlantic Indus., Inc. v. Blair, 457 S.W.3d 511 (Tex. App.—El Paso 2014), rev’d on other grounds, 482 S.W.3d 57 (Tex. 2016);
• Rosell v. Central W. Motor Stages, Inc., 89 S.W.3d 643 (Tex. App.—Dallas 2002, pet. denied);
• Arrington’s Estate v. Fields, 578 S.W.2d 173 (Tex. Civ. App.—Tyler 1979, writ ref’d n.r.e.);
• Frasier v. Pierce, 398 S.W.2d 955 (Tex. Civ. App.—Amarillo 1965, writ ref’d n.r.e.);
• Luvual v. Henke & Pillot, 366 S.W.2d 831 (Tex. Civ. App.—Houston 1963, writ ref’d n.r.e.);
• Patterson v. East Tex. Motor Freight Lines, 349 S.W.2d 634 (Tex. Civ. App.—Beaumont 1961, writ ref’d n.r.e.).

While the concurrence does not dissect each case individually, their collective import is this: Texas courts of appeals have generally accepted the notion that, at least when only ordinary negligence is alleged and the injury is not distinct, theories of respondeat superior and negligent entrustment (and close analogs) are mutually exclusive avenues of recovery.

In short, these cases support the proposition that acceptance of respondeat superior with respect to the alleged negligence of the tortfeasor leaves no room for derivative‑negligence claims. The Fourteenth Court’s en banc rejection of the admission rule therefore placed it at odds with a substantial body of intermediate authority and with the emerging national consensus.

4. Restatement (First) of Torts § 909 & Hammerly Oaks, Inc. v. Edwards, 958 S.W.2d 387 (Tex. 1997)

The key complication in this area is punitive damages. Even if compensatory damages and basic liability are fully addressed by respondeat superior, an employer’s own gross negligence can independently justify exemplary damages.

In Hammerly Oaks, the Texas Supreme Court adopted Restatement (First) of Torts § 909, setting out when punitive damages against a principal (like an employer) can be based on an agent’s conduct:

Punitive damages are available if, but only if:

1. the principal authorized the doing and the manner of the act, or
2. the agent was unfit and the principal was reckless in employing him, or
3. the agent was employed in a managerial capacity and was acting in the scope of employment, or
4. the employer or a manager of the employer ratified or approved the act.

(Hammerly Oaks, 958 S.W.2d at 391, quoting Restatement (First) of Torts § 909.)

This structure matters because, although the admission rule might render evidence of corporate training or hiring irrelevant to compensatory damages, such evidence may be central to establishing one of the § 909 pathways to exemplary damages. That tension is at the heart of the proposed “gross‑negligence exception” to the admission rule.

5. Arrington’s Estate v. Fields and Rodgers v. McFarland

Texas courts of appeals have split on whether there is a gross‑negligence‑driven exception to the admission rule:

• Arrington’s Estate v. Fields, 578 S.W.2d 173 (Tyler 1979): Applied the admission rule but recognized an exception when evidence of gross negligence is proffered to support exemplary damages. In other words, derivative corporate theories could proceed to the extent they were relevant to punitive damages.
• Rodgers v. McFarland, 402 S.W.2d 208 (El Paso 1966): Applied the admission rule without any such exception.

The Fourteenth Court in Werner sided with Arrington, holding that merely pleading gross negligence rendered the admission rule inapplicable. Justice Wilson’s dissent accepted that an exception might exist in concept but insisted that there must be legally sufficient evidence of gross negligence before the exception can be invoked. Justice Young, in turn, strongly endorses Justice Wilson’s more rigorous approach.

6. Texas Civil Practice & Remedies Code § 41.003

Section 41.003 sets stringent requirements for awarding exemplary damages in Texas:

• Clear and convincing evidence;
• Of fraud, malice, or gross negligence; and
• With specific procedural protections, including bifurcated trials in some circumstances.

Justice Young emphasizes that Texas imposes onerous burdens for punitive damages. Against that backdrop, he expresses “surprise” at the notion that a mere allegation of gross negligence, without a robust evidentiary basis, could nullify the admission rule. Doing so would convert a potentially significant procedural doctrine into a mere bauble, easily circumvented by formulaic pleading.

B. The Court’s Legal Reasoning (as Reflected in the Concurrence)

1. Precedential Effect: “Wiping the Slate Clean”

A first, concrete legal effect of the Supreme Court’s decision—highlighted in the concurrence—is precedential rather than substantive: because the Court reversed and rendered on the antecedent issue (tort liability as a matter of law), the Fourteenth Court’s discussion of the admission rule has no precedential value.

Justice Young is explicit:

“Had the court of appeals similarly answered that antecedent tort-law question, it could not have proceeded to address the ‘admission rule.’ … [T]oday’s decision wipes the slate clean, and the court of appeals’ discussion of the admission rule is no longer a precedent even in that court.”

This is a straightforward application of Texas appellate principles: when a higher court disposes of a case on narrower grounds, any broader, unnecessary holdings by the lower court are effectively vacated and should not be treated as binding.

2. Policy Justifications for the Admission Rule

Justice Young canvasses several reasons why the admission rule is attractive as a matter of legal administration and fairness:

1. Efficiency and Judicial Economy.
   Derivative negligence claims require expansive discovery and evidentiary development—personnel files, corporate training manuals, policies, internal documents, and expert testimony about standards of care. If the employer’s admission of course‑and‑scope liability means those theories cannot change the outcome on compensatory damages, it is inefficient to litigate them.
2. Relevance and Legal Materiality.
   When all injuries are already fully compensable through respondeat superior, additional theories of negligent hiring or supervision are legally irrelevant. They do not increase compensatory damages or expand liability to any new parties; they merely relabel the same liability.
3. Risk of Prejudice and Distorted Fault Allocation.
   Evidence about an employer’s training protocols or internal shortfalls can powerfully inflame a jury. If that evidence has no bearing on the actual measure of damages once liability is admitted, its only real function is to make the employer look worse. The Werner verdict, where Werner’s share of allocated fault nearly doubled once derivative theories were introduced, is described as a prime example of the confusion the rule is designed to prevent.
4. Conceptual Coherence.
   In the ordinary negligence setting, Justice Young emphasizes the derivative nature of claims like negligent entrustment or negligent supervision: they presuppose an underlying employee tort. If the employee is exonerated, the corporate claim must fail; if the employee is liable and the employer admits vicarious liability, nothing is added to the plaintiff’s recovery.

Taken together, these considerations suggest that the admission rule is not just administratively helpful but necessary to preserve the integrity of the fact‑finding process and to prevent unfair stacking of liability theories.

3. The Gross‑Negligence Exception: Narrowing the Escape Hatch

The main unresolved question is whether, and how, a gross‑negligence exception to the admission rule should operate. The logic of such an exception is:

• Ordinary negligence claims are fully addressed via respondeat superior once vicarious liability is admitted.
• But gross negligence can support exemplary damages against the employer that are not tethered solely to the employee’s conduct.
• Accordingly, evidence of negligent hiring, training, or supervision may be relevant to the employer’s own gross negligence, even if it is irrelevant to the existence of compensatory liability.

Justice Young acknowledges that this is a genuine doctrinal tension. Nonetheless, he is highly skeptical of the court of appeals’s resolution, which effectively adopted the rule:

If gross negligence is pleaded and exemplary damages are sought, the admission rule is off the table—no matter the evidence.

He instead aligns with Justice Wilson’s demand for a legal sufficiency threshold:

• Mere allegations of gross negligence should not suffice to bypass the admission rule; otherwise, the rule can be evaded practically in every significant injury case by rote pleading.
• Given the stringent requirements for punitive damages under § 41.003, the plaintiff should at least present evidence from which a reasonable jury could find gross negligence by the employer under Hammerly Oaks / Restatement § 909 before any gross‑negligence exception is triggered.

Justice Young goes further: he warns trial courts that using a mere allegation of gross negligence to ignore the admission rule would risk reversible error:

“If a gross-negligence claim that forms the basis for disregarding the admission rule in a given case turns out to have been ill-founded, I would be inclined to remand for a new trial on that ground—wholly aside from anything else in the case.”

That is an unusually strong signal to trial judges and litigants: until the Court squarely resolves the rule, trial courts should not treat gross‑negligence allegations as automatic permission to inject broad corporate‑fault evidence once vicarious liability is admitted.

4. Deference to Justice Wilson’s Dissent

Throughout the concurrence, Justice Young repeatedly praises and relies on Justice Wilson’s dissenting opinion from the court of appeals. He describes it as:

• scholarly and analytically thorough;
• highly convincing; and
• presumptively correct as a general matter.

He explicitly suggests that future litigants in the Supreme Court “would be wise to grapple” with Justice Wilson’s analysis, particularly if they wish to challenge the admission rule. This effectively elevates an intermediate‑court dissent into a roadmap for how the Texas Supreme Court is likely to think about the admission rule when it eventually addresses the issue head‑on.

C. Likely Impact on Future Cases and on Texas Law

1. Immediate Doctrinal Consequences

The concurrence, coupled with the Court’s judgment, generates several concrete, immediate consequences:

1. No precedential weight for the Fourteenth Court’s rejection of the admission rule.
   Litigants cannot treat the court of appeals’ prior en banc rejection of the admission rule as binding even within that district. The slate is clean on that question in the Houston [14th] district.
2. Preservation of existing admission‑rule precedents in other courts of appeals.
   Earlier decisions recognizing the mutual exclusivity of respondeat superior and negligent entrustment (and similar doctrines) remain undisturbed. The Supreme Court has not disapproved them; indeed, this concurrence suggests respect for those lines of authority.
3. Heightened scrutiny of derivative corporate theories when vicarious liability is admitted.
   Even without a formal adoption of the admission rule, trial and appellate courts are now on notice that multiple Justices view redundant derivative claims skeptically.

2. Strategic Effects on Litigation

For practitioners, the opinion has several practical implications:

• Defendants (especially transportation companies and large employers) are now even more likely to:
  • Promptly admit course‑and‑scope employment; and
  • Move aggressively to strike or exclude negligent hiring, training, and supervision claims as redundant when only ordinary negligence is at issue.
• Plaintiffs seeking to preserve corporate‑fault theories will need:
  • To develop and brief a substantive argument for why those theories are not wholly derivative (e.g., they impose additional duties or relate to distinct injuries); or
  • To marshal substantial evidence of gross negligence satisfying Hammerly Oaks and § 41.003, rather than relying on bare allegations.
• Trial courts will likely:
  • More seriously entertain motions for directed verdict or summary judgment on derivative claims once vicarious liability is conceded; and
  • Consider bifurcating punitive‑damages issues or tailoring evidentiary rulings to ensure that corporate‑fault evidence is introduced only if and when a credible punitive‑damages showing has been made.

3. Long‑Term Development of Texas Employer‑Liability Law

If, as Justice Young signals, the Court ultimately adopts an admission rule closely aligned with Justice Wilson’s analysis and McHaffie, the long‑term effects could include:

1. Doctrinal Simplification.
   In routine negligence actions involving employee drivers or other front‑line employees, Texas law would largely confine the plaintiff to:
   • Negligence (or other tort) claims against the employee; and
   • Vicarious liability against the employer via respondeat superior.
   Corporate‑negligence claims would be sharply limited or barred when they are purely derivative and add no compensatory damages beyond those already available.
2. Sharper Focus on Punitive‑Damages Issues.
   Corporate‑fault evidence relating to hiring, training, supervision, and corporate culture would be funneled into:
   • Carefully circumscribed punitive‑damages phases; and
   • Only when there is legally sufficient evidence of gross negligence meeting § 909 and § 41.003.
   This would likely make it harder, not easier, for plaintiffs to obtain punitive damages in employer cases, as courts will scrutinize whether the evidence meets the elevated substantive and procedural thresholds.
3. Reduced Discovery Burden on Corporate Defendants.
   Because derivative corporate theories drive much of the cost and complexity of discovery (personnel files, corporate safety policies, etc.), adoption of the admission rule would likely reduce discovery burdens and the leverage that plaintiffs can exert through sweeping corporate‑fault claims.
4. Clearer Allocation of Fault under Proportionate Responsibility.
   Texas’s proportionate‑responsibility regime requires juries to allocate percentages of responsibility among responsible parties. Without the admission rule, employers can be assigned overlapping percentages for the same harm (once for the driver, once for corporate negligence), as occurred in this case. The admission rule would steer juries to allocate fault properly between distinct tortfeasors and avoid double‑counting the employer’s responsibility for the same act.

V. Complex Concepts Simplified

To clarify the legal concepts underlying the concurrence, the following explanations may be helpful.

1. Respondeat Superior and “Course and Scope of Employment”

• Respondeat superior is Latin for “let the master answer.” Under this doctrine, an employer is vicariously liable for torts committed by an employee while acting in the course and scope of employment—that is, while performing tasks assigned by the employer or activities closely related to those tasks.
• Once an employer admits course and scope, the legal effect is that if the employee is found negligent, the employer will automatically be liable for that negligence.

2. “Derivative” Negligence Claims (Negligent Hiring, Supervision, Entrustment)

• Negligent hiring alleges the employer was negligent in hiring an unfit employee.
• Negligent training claims the employer failed to properly train the employee.
• Negligent supervision asserts the employer failed to adequately supervise the employee.
• Negligent entrustment typically alleges the employer negligently entrusted a vehicle or instrumentality to an unfit person.

These claims are called “derivative” in this context because they often depend on proof that the employee committed a tort. If the employee did nothing wrong, there is usually no liability for hiring, training, or supervising him.

3. Compensatory vs. Punitive (Exemplary) Damages

• Compensatory damages are meant to make the plaintiff whole—covering medical expenses, pain and suffering, lost wages, etc.
• Punitive (exemplary) damages are meant to punish especially egregious conduct and deter others. In Texas, they require:
  • Clear and convincing evidence; and
  • Proof of fraud, malice, or gross negligence (Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 41.003).

Under Restatement § 909 and Hammerly Oaks, punitive damages against an employer require more than just the employee’s negligence; there must be proof that the employer itself authorized, ratified, or was reckless in relation to the conduct, or that a managerial agent was involved.

4. Gross Negligence

In Texas, gross negligence is more than ordinary carelessness. It generally involves:

• Objectively extreme risk of harm; and
• A subjective awareness of that risk by the defendant, coupled with conscious indifference to the rights, safety, or welfare of others.

Because gross negligence opens the door to punitive damages, courts insist on solid evidentiary showings, not mere allegations.

5. Legal Sufficiency of Evidence

When courts talk about “legally sufficient” evidence of gross negligence, they mean:

• There is more than a scintilla of evidence from which a reasonable jury could find gross negligence under the governing standard, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmovant.
• If that threshold is not met, the issue cannot properly be submitted to the jury, and any verdict on that issue would be set aside on appeal.

Justice Young’s insistence on a sufficiency threshold for the gross‑negligence exception to the admission rule reflects this standard: only when there is enough evidence to justify submitting gross negligence to the jury should derivative corporate‑fault evidence be allowed to bypass the admission rule.

VI. Conclusion

Justice Young’s concurrence in Werner Enterprises v. Blake does not itself adopt the admission rule, nor does it resolve once and for all the status of negligent hiring, training, and supervision claims in Texas when an employer admits vicarious liability. The Court’s majority opinion, which holds that tort liability cannot be imposed as a matter of law, makes it unnecessary to reach those issues in this case.

Yet the concurrence is significant in several respects:

1. It clarifies the non‑precedential status of the Fourteenth Court of Appeals’ prior rejection of the admission rule, explicitly stating that the appellate court’s discussion of that doctrine is no longer binding even in its own district.
2. It strongly signals that at least some Justices of the Texas Supreme Court are inclined to adopt a robust admission rule in an appropriate future case—likely one resembling the approach articulated by Justice Wilson’s dissent below and informed by McHaffie and related authorities.
3. It counsels caution in invoking gross negligence and punitive damages as a way around the admission rule, emphasizing that mere pleading is not enough and that trial courts risk reversal if they allow broad derivative‑negligence litigation without legally sufficient evidence of gross negligence.
4. It underscores broader concerns about judicial efficiency, fairness, and the integrity of jury verdicts. The Werner jury’s shifting allocation of fault when derivative corporate theories were introduced is used to illustrate the dangers of redundant theories and prejudicial corporate‑fault evidence.

In the broader legal context, this concurrence marks a pivotal moment in Texas’s ongoing effort to calibrate employer liability in tort cases, particularly in the trucking and commercial‑transport sectors. Although the admission rule remains formally unresolved at the state’s highest court, the path forward has been sketched: future litigants who wish either to champion or to resist the admission rule must engage with Justice Wilson’s dissent and with the concerns articulated by Justice Young. Until such a case reaches the Court on a posture that requires a definitive ruling, lower courts are “free to proceed in the normal course,” but now with a clear understanding of the scrutiny the Supreme Court is likely to apply to derivative‑negligence theories when vicarious liability is already admitted.