Casualty Reciprocal Exchange v. Berry

90 S.W.2d 595
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedDecember 5, 1935
DocketNo. 4798.
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 90 S.W.2d 595 (Casualty Reciprocal Exchange v. Berry) 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
Casualty Reciprocal Exchange v. Berry, 90 S.W.2d 595 (Tex. Ct. App. 1935).

Opinion

HALL, Justice.

Appellee brought suit against appellant in the district court of Gregg county to set aside a decision of the Industrial Accident Board and for compensation insurance for injuries sustained by him on January 31, 1933, in the course of his employment with the Shore Line Refining Company of Kilgore, Tex. He alleged that on account of an explosion at the plant of the Shore Line Refining Company he received ' accidental injuries'and burns to his face, ears, nose, eyes, hands, and wrists, which directly and proximately resulted in total and permanent disability; and that the appellant was the insurer under the Workmen’s Compensation Act (Vernon’s Ann.Civ.St. art. 8306 et seq.) of the employees of the Shore Line Refining Company. He alleged full compliance with the Workmen’s Compensation Act with reference to notice of injury, filing of his claim with the Industrial Accident Board, and in instituting his suit to set aside the decision of the said board; and sought a lump sum recovery.

Appellant answered by general demurrer, general denial, and by a cross-action asked that the award of the Industrial Accident Board be set aside for the reason that the injuries received by-appellee *596 were temporary and superficial, and that there was no disability to appellee as a result of the accident entitling him to compensation. Appellant alleged, further, that it had paid to appellee the sum of $409.36 as compensation for his injuries from January 31, 1933, to July 12, 1933, and asked that it be given credit for that amount on any recovery by appellee.

Trial was had to a jury on special issues which were answered favorably to appellee. The court entered judgment for appellee in response to the jury’s answers to the special issues, from which appellant prosecutes its appeal to this court.

Appellant’s propositions 1 and 2, under assignments 3, 7, and 27, assert that the trial court committed error in permitting the appellee to prosecute his suit for compensation on a claim that had never been passed upon by the Industrial Accident Board. The contention by appellant is that appellee made claim before the Industrial Accident Board for an injury which occurred on January 31, 1933, and received an award therefor, but prosecuted his suit in the district court of Gregg county on a claim for an injury which occurred on December 31, 1933. This necessarily brings us to an examination of the original petition of the appellee upon which he went to trial. In the first paragraph of his petition appellee alleges that he sustained accidental injuries on or about January 31, 1933, while working in the course of his employment for the Shore Line Refining Company in Gregg County, Tex. In the second paragraplj of his petition he alleges that the appellant was the insurer of the employees of the Shore Line Refining Company on January 31, 1933. In the third paragraph of the petition he alleges with particularity the injury as of date December 31, 1933, but concludes this paragraph as follows: “And under the Workmen’s Compensation policy issued by defendant to the Shore Line Refining Company, the employer of plaintiff herein, he is entitled to compensation for a period of 401 weeks beginning on January 31, 1933.”

Without repeating, it is found that the allegation of the date of injury or the date when compensation should begin is stated in said petition ten times as being January 31, 1933. All the testimony in the record with reference to the injury, notice of injury, claim for compensation before the Industrial Accident Board, refer to January 31, 1933, as the date of injury. The original petition of appellee and the answer of appellant in this suit were filed several months before December 31, 1933, and 'the only reference in the entire record to the date December 31, 1933, is at the beginning of paragraph 3 of ap-pellee’s original petition. We think it clearly appears from the petition as a whole that the injury for which compensation was sought was that of date January 31, 1933, and that the insertion of the date December 31, 1933, at the beginning of paragraph 3 of the original petition was a typographical error. Our conclusion in this matter is strengthened by the fact that the date of December 31, 1933, at the time it was inserted in appellee’s petition, was an impossible date by several months; his original petition having been filed ofi July 19, 1933. In our opinion no one could be misled by this error of the typist, because, as said above, when the petition as a whole is looked to, one is convinced that the date of injury of the appellee was January 31, 1933. There was no special exception to this portion of appellee’s petition, and certainly a general demurrer would not reach it; therefore, the typographical error in plaintiff’s original petition was cured by the verdict of the jury. In Corpus Juris, vol. 49, p. 869, § 128, it is said: “It was early laid down as a rule of common law that, where there is any defect, imperfection, or omission in a pleading, whether of substance or form, which would have been a fatal objection upon demurrer, yet if the issue joined be such as necessarily required, on the trial proof of the facts so defectively or imperfectly stated or omitted, and without which it is not to be presumed that either the judge would direct the jury to give, or the jury would have given, the verdict, such defect, imperfection, or omission is curfcd by the verdict; and this statement of the rule has been quoted or approved, or one substantially similar has been stated, in numerous cases.”

And at page 883, § 1297 of the same volume, it is said: “If no time is alleged in the declaration, or if the time is misstated, or an impossible time is alleged, the defect will be cured by verdict or judgmeilt. The cause of action must, however, be shown to have accrued before the commencement of the suit, and if it appears otherwise from the record, the defect is fatal, and is not cured by verdict.”

*597 See, also, Schuster v. Frendenthal, 74 Tex. 53, 11 S.W. 1051. Therefore, this contention of the appellant is respectfully overruled.

By its third proposition under assignments Nos. 4, 5, 8, 10, 11, 28, and 50, appellant insists that there was no competent and legal evidence of the existence of its compensation policy in force at the time of the accident, whether January 31, 1933, or December 31, 1933. To establish the existence of the policy of insurance issued to the Shore Line Refining Company by appellant, the appellee introduced in evidence a certified copy of said policy as filed with the casualty insurance commissioner, a certified copy of the notice from the employer to the Industrial Accident Board to the effect that it was insured by appellant, certified copy of notice of the cancellation of said insurance policy by the appellant, and certified copy of report of initial payment. As a predicate of the introduction of the certified copies of these instruments, appellee in his original petition gave notice to appellant to produce the originals, or secondary evidence would be resorted to in order to prove the contents of same. Appellant failed to produce the original insurance policy. We think this evidence was proper under the pleading of appellee giving notice to appellant to produce the original of said instrument and its failure to do so. Texas Employers’ Ins. Ass’n v. Pierce (Tex.Civ.App.) 254 S.W. 1019; article 8307, § 5, R. S., as amended (Vernon’s Ann. Civ. St. art. 8307, § 5).

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