if empty statements in views fields or field templates
First of all, there is no such thing as $empty in views-view-field.tpl.php



Second, if you're not printing anything when the output is empty, then there is no need to add an else statement. Thus, this should do the trick:

&lt;?php if (!empty($output)) : ?&gt;
    &lt;p class="tms-caption font-alt-1 text-medium weight-light color-white hide-on-mobile mb-30" data-animate-in="preset:slideInDownShort;duration:900ms;delay:500ms;" data-no-scale&gt;&lt;?php print $output; ?&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;?php endif; ?&gt;


The first line means if NOT empty, in PHP ! = not.