A 76-year-old San Antonio lawyer is asking the Texas Supreme Court to reverse a $5 million civil judgment for groping a fellow attorney at a rural courthouse, arguing the appeals court invented a math formula to prop up the damages award.
Allan Manka filed a petition for review on July 27 challenging the verdict that Houston attorney Michelle Acosta, 43, won after accusing him of grabbing and squeezing her buttock without consent at the Wilson County courthouse in 2019. An 11-to-1 Bexar County jury found Manka liable for assault and intentional infliction of emotional distress in 2024, awarding Acosta $3 million for past mental anguish and $2 million for future mental anguish.
The 4th Court of Appeals upheld the full judgment in May, concluding the evidence was legally and factually sufficient. Manka's petition contends the appeals court got the law wrong, and that the size of the award rests on reasoning no evidence actually supports.
At the center of Manka's argument is how the 4th Court of Appeals justified $3 million in past mental-anguish damages. His petition claims the court created a formula equating the verdict to five hours of therapy per day, a calculation, Manka argues, that no testimony or documentary evidence ever supported. He says the court then relied on the same reasoning to uphold the $2 million future-anguish award.
If Manka's characterization is accurate, the question is straightforward: can an appellate court invent its own arithmetic to validate a jury's number, or must the number stand on evidence the jury actually heard? Texas law generally requires mental-anguish damages to rest on direct evidence of the nature, duration, and severity of the anguish, not on a post-hoc formula dreamed up on appeal.
Manka contends the legal errors require a new trial. His attorney, Paul Burgess, declined to comment on the petition.
Lara Brock, representing Acosta, pushed back in an email. She framed the petition as part of a pattern stretching back to the original incident.
"I am disappointed to see Mr. Manka's continued refusal to accept accountability for his choices and actions, both in relation to his initial encounter with Ms. Acosta and throughout the litigation and trial. This Petition for Review is a continuation of what we have seen from him and his litigation team thus far."
The underlying allegation dates to 2019. Acosta accused Manka of groping her at the Wilson County courthouse following a family-law hearing. The case went to trial five years later in Bexar County, where the jury viewed a courthouse video of the encounter before returning its near-unanimous verdict.
No criminal charges connected to the 2019 incident have been reported. The case has moved entirely through the civil courts.
The Texas Supreme Court has discretion over which petitions for review it accepts. As of early August, the court had not announced whether it would take up Manka's case. If it declines, the $5 million judgment stands. If it grants review, the justices would examine whether the 4th Court of Appeals correctly applied the state's legal standards for mental-anguish damages and civil assault.
The stakes extend beyond this one case. How Texas courts evaluate large mental-anguish awards, and whether appellate judges may construct their own justifications for a jury's dollar figure, matters to every civil litigant in the state. A ruling from the state's highest court could tighten or loosen the evidentiary threshold for emotional-distress damages across the board.
Several open questions remain unanswered. The specific statutes Manka cites in his petition have not been publicly detailed. What the courthouse video actually depicts, whether it clearly shows the alleged groping or captures the encounter more generally, is not spelled out in available reporting. And the documented basis for the jury's $5 million figure, including any therapy records or expert testimony Acosta presented, has not been made public.
Courts exist to get the law right, not to rubber-stamp a sympathetic verdict with made-up math, and the Texas Supreme Court now has a chance to say so.
