OPINION
J. Wigglesworth Company and William Kirby (“Appellants”) appeal from an adverse judgment rendered in favor of Michael Pee-ples. A jury found Kirby twenty percent liable for injuries Peeples incurred when a truck driven by a third party hit Peeples’s vehicle. Peeples appeals from the trial court’s remittitur of damages. We reverse and render in part and affirm in part.
I. BACKGROUND
This appeal involves a tracking accident that occurred September 20,1994, at the end of a traffic backup caused by Kirby. Kirby, a truck driver for J. Wigglesworth Company, *662 was traveling westbound on Interstate 20 in Louisiana with a mobile home. Kirby’s permit to carry the wide load required him to exit 1-20 at milepost 69. Kirby missed his exit and continued into a construction area where wide loads were prohibited. The westbound lanes were completely closed, with traffic diverted into one of the eastbound lanes. Only one lane was open in each direction. Concrete barriers divided the single lanes of traffic and a ditch bordered the right-hand side of Kirby’s lane.
Kirby reached a bridge in the construction zone that was too narrow for his truck to pass through. He stopped, blocking his lane and backing traffic up behind him for almost 300 yards. At the end of the backup, behind forty to fifty other vehicles, Roger Dick stopped his eighteen wheeler and watched as cars tried to move out of Kirby’s way to give him room to back up.
Michael Peeples was driving a truck directly behind Dick. As he approached the area, he heard Kirby tailring on the CB about missing his exit. Peeples thought it was idle conversation until he heard Kirby say that he didn’t think his truck would fit through the bridge. As traffic ahead of him began braking, Peeples used his CB to warn truck drivers behind him to slow down. Peeples then heard Kirby say he was going to back up and realized that traffic was about to stop completely. Peeples got on the CB again and warned truckers that traffic was coming to a standstill. As Peeples brought his truck to a halt behind Dick’s truck, he heard a woman’s voice on the CB radio say, “I can’t stop.” In his rear-view mirror, he saw Sheryl Harmon’s eighteen wheeler bearing down on him. As Peeples braced for the impact, Harmon’s truck struck his vehicle, propelling it into the back of Dick’s truck.
Peeples filed a negligence suit against Appellants, Harmon, and Harmon’s employer, Southwestern Carriers, Inc. 1 A jury found Appellants twenty percent negligent for Pee-ples’s injuries, and Harmon and her employer eighty percent negligent. The jury awarded Peeples a total of $108,409 in damages: $75,000 for physical pain and mental anguish; $25,000 for physical impairment; $7,200 for loss of earning capacity; and $1,209 for medical care in the past.
Appellants moved for judgment non ob-stante veredicto (N.O.V.), contending that, as a matter of law, Kirby’s conduct was too remote to be the cause in fact of the accident and Peeples’s injuries. Appellants also filed a motion for new trial, arguing that the jury’s verdict was not supported by factually sufficient evidence. In addition, Appellants moved for a remittitur, contending that the jury’s damage award was not supported by factually sufficient evidence. The trial court denied the motion for judgment N.O.V. and motion for new trial, but ordered a remittitur of $25,000 for physical pain and mental anguish, and $12,500 for physical impairment. The trial court also held that Appellants were entitled to a $20,000 credit based on the out-of-court settlement between Peeples, Harmon, and Harmon’s employer. The trial court rendered judgment in favor of Peeples for $50,909, plus costs and pre- and post-judgment interest.
On appeal, Appellants bring three points, contending that (1) the trial court erred in denying the motion for judgment N.O.V., (2) the trial court erred in refusing Appellant’s request for an instruction in the court’s charge on new and independent cause, and (3) the evidence is factually insufficient to support the jury’s finding that Appellants proximately caused Peeples’s injuries. Pee-ples has also appealed, contending that the trial court erred in ordering a remittitur because the evidence was factually sufficient to support the jury’s verdict.
II. SUFFICIENCY OF THE EVIDENCE
In their first and third points, Appellants challenge the legal and factual sufficiency of the evidence to support the jury’s finding that Kirby’s negligence proximately caused Peeples’s injury. Specifically, Appellants contend that the trial court erred in overruling their motion for judgment N.O.V. and *663 motion for new trial because as a matter of law, Kirby’s negligent conduct was too remote to be the cause in fact of Peeples’s injuries.
A. Standard of Review
A judgment N.O.Y. is proper only if there is no evidence supporting the jury’s findings.
See Exxon Corp. v. Quinn,
An assertion that the evidence is “insufficient” to support a fact finding means that the evidence supporting the finding is so weak or the evidence to the contrary is so overwhelming that the answer should be set aside and a new trial ordered.
See Garza v. Alviar,
B. Proximate Cause
In this case, Appellants contend that Kirby’s negligence was too attenuated in time and distance from the Peeples-Harmon collision to be the legal cause of Peeples’s injuries. Appellants argue that “[i]t is clear that all acts and omissions [committed by] Kirby had run their course and were complete at the time of the accident caused by Harmon.” Appellants also argue that Kirby merely created a condition in which the accident occurred and thus conclude that their case is analogous to the situation in
Bell v. Campbell,
To proximately cause an injury, an actor need not be the last cause, or the act immediately preceding an injury.
See Texas Power and Light Co. v. Stone,
At some point in the causal chain, however, a defendant’s conduct may simply be too attenuated from the plaintiffs injury as a matter of law to constitute legal causation.
See Union Pump Co. v. Allbritton,
As the supreme court explained in Lear Siegler, Inc. v. Perez:
In order to be a legal cause of another’s harm, it is not enough that the harm would not have occurred had the actor not been negligent.... [T]his is necessary, but is not of itself sufficient. The negligence *664 must also be a substantial factor in bringing about the plaintiffs harm. The word “substantial” is used to denote the fact that the defendant’s conduct has such an effect in producing the harm as to lead reasonable men to regard it as a cause, using that word in the popular sense, in which there always lurks the idea of responsibility, rather than in the so-called “philosophic sense,” which includes every one of the great number of events without which any happening would not have occurred. Each of these events is a cause in the so-called “philosophic sense,” yet the effect of many of them is so insignificant that no ordinary mind would think of them as causes.
Indeed, this case is similar to the situation in
Almaraz v. Burke,
Burke sued Almaraz, who argued that he was not a proximate cause of Burke’s accident because (1) it occurred ten minutes after he (Almaraz) hit Hoffman’s car and (2) Burke was a new and intervening cause that relieved Almaraz’s original negligence. Id. The jury found in favor of Burke. We affirmed, holding that a rational jury could have concluded that by causing Hoffinan’s car to become disabled on an interstate highway, Almaraz was a cause of the collision between the Hoffman-Burke vehicles. See id. In this case, the evidence clearly established that Kirby’s negligence and the effects thereof, i.e., the traffic backup, had not come to a rest.
Appellants rely on
Union Pump, Lear Siegler,
and
Bell
as support for their position that Kirby’s negligence was too remote to proximately cause Peeples’s injuries. But we have no problem distinguishing these and the other cases cited in Appellant’s brief. Unlike the situations in
Lear Siegler, Union Pump,
and
Bell,
Kirby’s negligence did not simply create a condition that made Peeples’s injuries possible or cause Peeples to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
See Union Pump,
In contrast with the above cases, the connection between Kirby’s act and Peeples’s injuries was not too attenuated as a matter of law to constitute legal causation.
See Almaraz,
III. NEW AND INDEPENDENT CAUSE INSTRUCTION
In their second point, Appellants contend that the trial court erred in overruling their request for an instruction on new and independent cause. Appellate courts review the denial of a requested jury instruction under an abuse of discretion standard.
See Mobil Chem. Co. v. Bell,
“New and independent cause” is an inferential rebuttal defense that may be submitted to the jury as an instruction but not as a special issue.
See
Tex.R. Civ. P. 277;
Perez v. Weingarten Realty Investors,
A new and independent cause is some act or omission of a separate and independent agency that destroys the causal connection between the defendant’s original negligent act and the occurrence in question.
See id.
However, if an intervening cause was reasonably foreseeable by the defendant in the exercise of ordinary care, it cannot be considered a new and independent cause that will break the chain of causation.
See Knoll v. Neblett,
As noted above, at the time of Peeples’s injuries, Kirby’s negligence and the effects thereof were still in motion. Furthermore, this is precisely the type of intervening act (i.e., a wreck involving a third party) that Kirby, in the exercise of ordinary care, could reasonably foresee would result from missing his exit, blocking traffic, and backing up his eighteen wheeler in a construction zone. Because it was reasonably foreseeable, as a matter of law Harmon’s act could not be a new and independent cause. We overrule point two.
IV. REMITTITUR
In a single cross-point, Peeples challenges the trial court’s decision to grant a remitti-tur. At the hearing on Appellant’s motion for remittitur, Appellants asked the trial court to remit $20,000 of the $108,409 damage award, contending that the jury’s award shocked the conscience and was manifestly unjust. Instead, the trial court ordered a remittitur of $37,500, consisting “of $25,000 for physical pain and mental anguish, and $12,500 for physical impairment. 2 After Appellants filed their notice of appeal, Peeples perfected his appeal on this issue. See Tex.R.App. P. 26.1(d), 46.2.
We review remittiturs under a factual sufficiency standard.
See Larson v. Cactus Util. Co.,
Because personal injury damages are unliquidated and incapable of measurement by any certain standard, the jury has broad discretion in fixing the amount of the award.
See Kansas City Southern Ry. Co. v. Catanese,
In this case, Appellants contend that the evidence is insufficient to support the jury’s award for physical pain and mental anguish and physical impairment because (1) there is no evidence that Peeples suffered any injury, (2) Peeples did not seek medical treatment until May 1995, more than eight months after the accident, (3) Peeples never took any pain medication, (4) Peeples’s doctor had not seen him in more than a year before the trial, and (5) Peeples testified that since the accident, he “can still do just about anything.” We disagree.
At trial, Peeples testified that the morning after the wreck, he went to Bossier Medical Center for an examination and told the staff that he felt like he’d been beaten with a chain. However, Peeples believed the soreness was temporary and he would be able to return to work in a few days. Instead, the pain got worse. Peeples did not seek medical attention at that time because he does not like doctors. Likewise, he did not resort to pain medication because he “just [doesn’t] believe in it.”
Eventually the pain became so bad that Peeples could barely walk. When he did, it felt like an ice pick was being rammed into his back and twisted. Sometimes he would wake up at night screaming from the pain. At that point, Peeples sought chiropractic care from Dr. Ken Mansfield, who treated Peeples on nine occasions from May 1995 to February 1996. Peeples testified he was no longer being treated by Mansfield because he could not afford to miss work or incur any more debt until he had a way to pay for it.
Mansfield testified about Peeples’s neck and back injuries. He said Peeples had a chronic moderate cervical sprain acceleration injury (commonly referred to as “whiplash”) and a chronic moderate lumbar sprain in his lower back, an injury that is “quite painful.” He also said Peeples’s injuries were consistent with a 45-mile-per-hour rear-end collision, and he believed Peeples’s injuries were caused by such a collision. Finally, Mansfield testified that Peeples will likely have chronic back pain as a result of his injuries and driving a truck is not a good occupation for Peeples as a result of his injuries. This evidence, coupled with Peeples’s testimony, is factually sufficient to support a $75,000 award for Peeples’s physical pain and mental suffering.
The jury also heard sufficient evidence to support an award of $25,000 in damages for physical impairment. Peeples testified that at the time of the collision, he was in perfect health. Although Peeples said that he could “still do just about anything,” he qualified this statement, saying, “The only difference is, before I could do anything without pain and without any limitations.... Now, after the accident, what I do may not be as quick, due to the pain, and I may end up suffering for it the next day.” Peeples also said that he could no longer participate in motocross or cross-country motorcycle racing, he could not work on cars like he did before he was injured, and his back hurt whenever he did anything strenuous. In addition, although Peeples is a trained electrician, that work is now too strenuous for him.
Because the evidence was factually sufficient to support the damage awards for physical pain and mental anguish and physical impairment, the trial court erred in ordering a remittitur. We sustain Peeples’s point.
V. CONCLUSION
When we sustain a remitting party’s contention that remittitur should not have been required, we must render the judgment that the trial court should have rendered. See Tex.R.App. P. 46.2. Accordingly, we reverse the part of the trial court’s judgment ordering a remittitur of $25,000 for physical pain and mental anguish and $12,500 for physical impairment. We render judgment in favor of Peeples against Appellants on the jury’s original verdict as follows:
• $75,000 in damages for physical pain and mental anguish,
• $7,200 for loss of earning capacity,
*667 • $25,000 for physical impairment, and
• $1,209 for medical care in the past.
We affirm the remainder of the trial court’s judgment. Thus, Peeples’s total recovery is $88,409 ($108,409 minus Appellants’ $20,000 credit for Peeples’s out-of-court settlement with Harmon and her employer). We remand the cause to the trial court for recalculation of interest.
Notes
. The parties stipulated that Kirby was acting in the course and scope of his duties for his employer, J. Wigglesworth Company and that his employer would be vicariously liable if Kirby was found negligent. Harmon and her employer settled out of court with Peeples for $20,000.
. The trial court originally ordered a remittitur of $37,500 for physical pain and mental anguish (in addition to the $12,500 remittitur for physical impairment). Upon Peeples’s motion, however, the court reconsidered and reduced the amount to $25,000.