Associated Indemnity Corp. v. McGrew

142 S.W.2d 567, 1940 Tex. App. LEXIS 594
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJuly 3, 1940
DocketNo. 10992
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 142 S.W.2d 567 (Associated Indemnity Corp. v. McGrew) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Associated Indemnity Corp. v. McGrew, 142 S.W.2d 567, 1940 Tex. App. LEXIS 594 (Tex. Ct. App. 1940).

Opinion

CODY, Justice.

This is a workman’s compensation case..

It is sufficient, we think, for the purposes of this,opinion to limit the statement. [569]*569of the pleadings to thisThat appellee sued for compensation for total and permanent disability during 401 weeks, beginning with the 8th of December, 1937, the date he received his injuries; and in the alternative appellee sued for compensation for permanent partial disability for such time as the proof failed to show him entitled to compensation for total permanent disability. As a basis for a wage rate under one of the three methods provided by Art. 8309, Revised Statutes 1925, appellee pled that at. the time he was injured he had worked for more than a year in the same employment, either for his then employer or other employers, for wages of $7.50 per day and more, working 7 days per week; and in the alternative he pled that other employees of the same class working substantially the whole of the immediately preceding year in the same or a neighboring place were earning $7.50 per day, and more; and further in the alternative, appellee pled as a fair and just wage compensation, the sum of $20 per week.

Appellant answered by a general demurrer and a general denial.

The court submitted but four special issues to be answered by the jury, who found: (1) That the total incapacity to work which appellee suffered as a result of the injuries sustained on December 8, 1937, was not permanent. (2) That such total incapacity had continued and would continue from December 8, 1937, 104 weeks. (3) That appellee has suffered and will suffer partial incapacity after the end of his period of total incapacity. (4) That the percentage of such partial incapacity suffered by appellee is 60 per cent.

The appellee, in his motion for judgment on the verdict, set forth as the way the compensation rate should be computed, as follows:

“The amount of $7.50 being the average daily wage upon which to calculate the compensation that plaintiff is entitled to recover, the figures set forth in said draft of judgment are arrived at by this calculation, to-wit: 300x$7.50 is $2,250.00, which is the average annual wages; 1/52 of that amount is $43.26, which is the average weekly wages; 60% of that amount is $25.95, therefore, plaintiff is entitled to the maximum of $20.00 per week based on total incapacity for a period of 104 weeks, or a total, amount of $2,080.00; but the defendant having paid plaintiff for 34 weeks at $20.00 per week, a total of $680.-00, such amount deducted from the said item of $2,080.00 leaves $1,400.00 as the total amount due and to become due plaintiff during said total incapacity period of 104 weeks. Up to the week ending July 5, 1939, forty-eight weeks of said period have already matured, and figured at $20.-00 per week, the total amount so matured is $960.00, leaving a balance of $440.00 included in said item of $1,400.00 not yet matured. Also upon said matured amount of $960.00 interest, figured at 6%, has accrued to date, in the amount of $25.54, the total of said principal amount and interest thus being $985.54.
“As above stated, the average weekly wages is $43.26 and the percentage of plaintiff’s partial incapacity as found by the jury is 60%, therefore 60% of said $43.26 is $25.95, and 60% of said amount ($25.95) is the weekly wage rate upon which to figure plaintiff’s recovery during the period of his partial incapacity, such period being 297 weeks, this figure being arrived at by deducting the total incapacity period of 104 weeks from 401 weeks; 60% of $25.95 is $15.57, this multiplied by 297 makes a total of $4,624.29, the amount plaintiff is entitled to recover for said period of 297 weeks’ partial incapacity. See Section 11, Article 8306, Workmen’s Compensation Law.”

The court entered judgment in accordance with appellee’s motion for 104 weeks’ compensation at $20 per week, and 297 weeks’ compensation- at $15.57 per week, in compliance with appellee’s quoted motion.

Appellant seeks reversal of the judgment on the ground, first: That there was no basis for judgment against it, because (a) there was no evidence to establish a wage rate; (b) the evidence was insufficient to establish a wage rate; (c) and there were no jury findings upon which to base a wage rate. Second:' That the court should have submitted appellant’s requested issues on (a) permanent partial disability; (b) temporary partial disability; and decrease in percentage of partial disability. Third: That the court should have submitted appellant’s requested issue as to the differ■ence between average weekly wages at the time of the accident and the average weekly wage-earning capacity during partial incapacity; and should have ruled that there was no evidence, and insufficient evidence to establish a compensation rate for [570]*570partial incapacity. Fourth: That the court rendered excessive judgment for partial incapacity.

With reference to appellant’s first contention, relating to the wage rate, the evidence was as follows: Appellee testified that on December 8, 1937 (the date of his injury), he was working for Smith & McDannald in the Hastings oil field in Brazoria County as a rotary helper drilling an oil well, but had only been working for such employer for two or three months; that before he came to the Hastings field he had worked at Rotan and at Dayton and in Louisiana; that since he had started to work he had done oil field work, pipeline work and mechanical work; when injured he was receiving $7.50 per ■day for eight hours work, and had received that while working in the Hastings field; that he had been doing the same kind of work for four years, and had been doing general oil field work for four to six years. T. O. Johnson, a witness for appellee, testified that he lived in Dayton, and knew appellee; he also testified that he (Johnson) had been an oil field worker in the drilling department for nine years, and that at the time appellee got hurt he, Johnson, was working for Loflin Brothers in the Hastings oil field; that he started working there the first part of January and left there just before Christmas in 1937; and that during that time he worked as_ much as 300 days; that during the first part of 1937, he was paid $7 per day, and in February they started paying him $8 per day; that he worked 7 days a week, and that every 2 weeks to 20 days he would earn 1 day overtime.

It is obvious that the evidence was insufficient to establish a wage rate under Section 1 of Art. 8309, which reads: “If the injured employe shall have worked in the employment in which he was working at the time of the injury, whether for the same employer or not, substantially the whole of the year immediately preceding the injury, his average annual wages shall consist of three hundred times the average daily wage or salary which he shall have earned in such employment during the days when so employed.” The evidence shows only what appellee made in the employment he was following for 2 or 3 months, and not what he earned in the same employment for substantially the'whole of the year immediately preceding the injury.

It is appellant’s contention that the evidence was likewise insufficient to establish a wage rate under Section 2 of Art.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Consolidated Casualty Insurance Company v. Newman
300 S.W.2d 160 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1957)
Texas Employer's Ins. Ass'n v. Spivey
231 S.W.2d 760 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1950)
Traders & General Ins. Co. v. Yarbrough
181 S.W.2d 305 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1944)
Traders & General Ins. Co. v. Wilder
186 S.W.2d 1011 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1943)
Associated Indemnity Corp. v. McGrew
160 S.W.2d 912 (Texas Supreme Court, 1942)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
142 S.W.2d 567, 1940 Tex. App. LEXIS 594, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/associated-indemnity-corp-v-mcgrew-texapp-1940.