Cooper v. Argonaut Insurance Co.

430 S.W.2d 35, 1968 Tex. App. LEXIS 2234
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedMay 31, 1968
Docket17100
StatusPublished
Cited by16 cases

This text of 430 S.W.2d 35 (Cooper v. Argonaut Insurance Co.) 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
Cooper v. Argonaut Insurance Co., 430 S.W.2d 35, 1968 Tex. App. LEXIS 2234 (Tex. Ct. App. 1968).

Opinion

BATEMAN, Justice.

This is a workman’s compensation suit in which judgment was rendered for appellant for the unpaid balance of weekly payments due him because of an inguinal hernia. Being dissatisfied with the amount, and because he was allowed nothing for alleged back injury, he appeals and assigns twenty-five points of error.

He alleged both the inguinal hernia and a lumbosacral back strain which aggravated a previously existing degenerative arthritic condition of his lumbar spine. He also sued for certain medical and hospital expenses, alleging that appellee refused to pay them. Appellee provided nun hospitalization and a surgical operation to repair the hernia and paid him several weekly benefits at the maximum rate of $35 per week. The jury found that appellant’s injury was confined to a hernia, and that the hernia operation was successful. Other special issues, submitted conditionally upon either a finding that the injury was not confined to a hernia, or that the hernia operation was not successful, and relating to the claimed general injury to the back, were not answered. The jury refused to find, in answer to Special Issues Nos. 13 and 15, respectively, that appellee failed, refused or neglected to furnish reasonable medical and hospital services as and when needed, or that manifest hardship and injury would result from payment of compensation to appellant in weekly installments instead of a lump sum. The jury also found that the disability was due solely to outside causes.

By his first two points of error appellant complains of the action of the trial court in permitting appellee’s counsel to examine appellant and his son as to whether appellant had been married to the son’s mother. These points will be considered together with the twelfth point of error, wherein the appellant complains of the following argument of appellee’s counsel to the jury:

“Now, maybe I am wrong going into this, but we have a man’s credibility here. We have Mr. Cooper. He is somewhat on trial himself, because he is the one that says, T hurt, I can’t do this, I can’t do that.’ And of course, we don’t know, you and I don’t know. We don’t know whether he is telling the truth, or not. So, we have a right and we have a duty to examine the man, look at him, look at his background, look at his morals; a man that lived with a woman, his friend, had children by her, didn’t marry her. Is that the type of man that is to be believed? Is that the type of man that has the moral character that should be believed?”

Appellant did not object either to the testimony in question or the jury argument quoted above. It is our opinion that by his failure to object he waived what error there may have been. Such objections cannot be first urged on appeal as a ground for reversal. Hinsley v. Continental Trailways Bus System, 302 S.W.2d 668 (Tex.Civ.App., Galveston 1957, no writ), and cases therein cited; McCormick and Ray, Texas Law of Evidence, 2d Ed., § 22, p. 20; 56 Tex.Jur.2d, Trial, § 158, p. 499; *38 City of Houston v. Huber, 311 S.W.2d 488, 495 (Tex.Civ.App., Houston 1958, no writ); Consolidated Underwriters v. Pittman, 388 S.W.2d 315, 319 (Tex.Civ.App., Beaumont 1964, no writ). The first, second and twelfth points are overruled.

By his third point of error appellant asserts that the entire jury argument of appellee’s counsel was so prejudicial and inflammatory that it could not be cured by any instruction and probably resulted in an improper verdict. This point is too broad and multifarious in that it fails to direct our attention to the specific error relied upon, as required by Rule 418, Vernon’s Texas Rules of Civil Procedure. Insofar as it may be said to apply to the above quoted argument, we hold that the error could have been cured by instruction. The third point is therefore overruled.

In his fourth point of error the ap-. pellant complains of argument of counsel for appellee to the jury with respect to a claim made by appellant to his disability insurance carrier. Appellee had offered the testimony of one J. A. Stanfield, District Manager for Atlanta Life Insurance Company, in which company appellant owned a policy of disability insurance, to the effect that appellant had made a claim against that company for the hernia suffered by him and was paid weekly benefits under that policy aggregating $90. The trial court admitted the testimony only on the lump sum issue. In the early part of his jury argument, however, counsel for appellee said:

“Do you know what really cinches this thing and really gets right down to the heart of it, is what did he claim to his own insurance carrier? What did Mr. Stanfield say?”

When reminded by the court that Stan-field’s testimony had been admitted for a limited purpose, appellee’s attorney said:

“All right. Well, anyway, Mr. Stan-field testified that he was paid a period for up until November 3rd, 1966.”

The trial court correctly handled the matter, and we do not think appellant was prejudiced by appellee’s somewhat reluctant compliance with the ruling. Appellant’s fourth point is overruled.

In this connection we consider appellee’s cross-point, which complains of the restriction placed by the court on Stanfield’s said testimony. It is argued thereunder that appellant’s failure to present a claim to his own carrier for his back injury is an admission that he actually had no such claim, and also that he was not disabled beyond the period for which he was paid by his own insurance carrier.

In our opinion, the court properly declined to undertake the trial of the issues involved in appellant’s claim against his own insurance carrier. This was a collateral transaction, its only relevance here being, as the court ruled, in connection with appellee’s effort to disprove appellant’s claim of poverty in connection with the issue on lump sum. Therefore, we overrule appellee’s cross-point.

By his fifth point of error appellant complains of argument by appellee’s counsel to the jury that a certain doctor who had testified for appellant was “obviously a friend of Mr. Terry [appellant’s counsel] or he would not have referred him to him or sent him over.” Appellant cites no authority to indicate that such argument is improper or that it would constitute reversible error. We see no merit in the point, and overrule the same.

By his sixth and seventh points of error appellant complains because counsel for appellee, in his argument to the jury, commented upon the failure of appellant to call a certain doctor, who had examined the appellant, as a witness and indicating that the doctor was not called because his testimony would have been unfavorable to appellant. The reference was to a Dr. Wisner, an orthopedist to whom Dr. Francis had sent appellant for examination and evaluation for further diagnosis and *39 treatment. No authority is cited to support these points, and we do not think they present reversible error. In the first place, such argument has been held to be proper where the opposite party has failed to call a witness “employed by him.” Tex-Jersey Oil Corporation v. Beck, 157 Tex.

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430 S.W.2d 35, 1968 Tex. App. LEXIS 2234, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/cooper-v-argonaut-insurance-co-texapp-1968.