Durbin v. Dal-Briar Corp.

871 S.W.2d 263, 1994 WL 32191
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedMarch 3, 1994
Docket08-92-00409-CV
StatusPublished
Cited by52 cases

This text of 871 S.W.2d 263 (Durbin v. Dal-Briar Corp.) 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
Durbin v. Dal-Briar Corp., 871 S.W.2d 263, 1994 WL 32191 (Tex. Ct. App. 1994).

Opinion

OPINION

LARSEN, Justice.

Plaintiff David Durbin appeals from a take-nothing verdict in this wrongful termination case brought under Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat. Ann. art. 8307c. 1 Durbin complains that the trial court wrongfully excluded evidence of other terminations, which Durbin claimed were relevant and admissible to prove the company’s policy of dismissing employees filing worker’s compensation claims. Durbin also complains of jury misconduct, asserts that he proved his right to recover as a matter of law, and alternatively claims that the jury’s verdict was against the great weight of the evidence. Finding that the trial court erred in excluding relevant evi *266 dence, we reverse and remand for a new trial.

FACTS

David Durbin worked at Dal-Briar Corporation, a talc mine in Culberson County, from February 1981 until November 6, 1989. He began work as a truck driver, and was eventually promoted to shop mechanic, then head mechanic. He remained in that position until he was terminated.

During his tenure at Dal-Briar, Durbin had eight work-related injuries. Dal-Briar or its insurer paid all medical expenses for his treatment. None of his first seven injuries were serious, and none involved lost time from work. Durbin never made a claim for worker’s compensation benefits beyond payment of his medical expenses. After his sixth injury, Durbin’s supervisor, Mack Min-yard, told him that if he was injured once more Dal-Briar would fire him. Minyard was himself fired for unrelated reasons, and did not work at Dal-Briar in November 1989. Durbin had a seventh injury, also minor, after which he was not fired. In August 1989, however, a hydraulic motor fell on his hand, crushing his finger. A Dal-Briar employee took him to the hospital in Van Horn where the attending physician recommended amputation. Durbin did not agree to this, and instead went to see a specialist in El Paso the next day. When he informed a Dal-Briar employee of his wish to see a specialist, she told him he should just get the amputation as more complicated treatment would just “waste money for the company.” Nevertheless, Dal-Briar paid all costs of Durbin’s treatment, and his finger was saved.

Durbin was off work for six weeks. He retened with instructions from his doctor to avoid heavy labor and to keep his injured hand clean. Dal-Briar never allowed Durbin to resume work at the machine shop. Instead, he was assigned to dig a water line with pick and shovel, then told to drill an inch-and-a-half hole in a Caterpillar tractor using an electric hand drill. Durbin testified this job could not be done with the drill. He asked that he be allowed to do it on the shop’s drill press, or with a torch. The mine manager refused to agree to this, and told him to do it alone, with the hand drill. Dur-bin attempted to drill the hole, but could not because the drill twisted up his injured arm. A certified mechanic who did contract work for Dal-Briar testified that he could use this hand drill to bore holes in metal, air conditioning cabinets, truck cabs, and heavy steel.

Five days after the incident with the hand drill, Durbin’s supervisor called him into Dal-Briar’s office and terminated him. During this meeting, Durbin was given two written warnings. In one, he was told he had not kept up his record-keeping; the second was his notice of termination. The second “warning” told Durbin that because he was unable to do the drilling job asked of him, forcing Dal-Briar to send the work out to a machine shop, he was being fired. Although the two disciplinary warnings were dated 11/6/89, and Durbin was fired on that date, both documents listed “DATE OF INCIDENT” as 11/31/89. Neither party ever explained or explored this discrepancy.

Durbin filed suit alleging Dal-Briar had violated 8307c in terminating him. His theory of the case was that it was company policy to terminate employees who received on-the-job injuries, sought worker’s compensation benefits, or hired lawyers. He specifically alleged this theory in his trial petition:

Plaintiff would further show that it was the Defendant’s practice and/or procedure to fire, terminate or get rid of employees who, following an on-the-job injury, sought the medical treatment of a doctor of their choice or hired an attorney to represent them in connection with the making of a claim pursuant to the Texas Worker’s Compensation Act or instituted a proceeding under the Texas Worker’s Compensation Act.

The district court initially consolidated Durbin’s case with two other 8307c cases against Dal-Briar. Dal-Briar challenged the consolidation order by writ of mandamus in this Court. We conditionally granted the writ, and the trial court deconsolidated the three cases. Dal-Briar Corp. v. Baskette, 833 S.W.2d 612, 617 (Tex.App. — El Paso 1992, orig. proceeding). Durbin’s was the first of the three to go to trial.

*267 In a complete about-face, The trial court granted Dal-Briar’s motion in limine, which requested that plaintiff be prohibited from:

Calling persons terminated by Defendant who have had worker’s compensation claims to speculate on why they may have been terminated or how they might have been treated by Defendant. Such evidence is not relevant to why Plaintiff or how Plaintiff was treated in this case and, in any event, would be far more prejudicial than probative. Tex.R.Civ.Evid. 401, 402, 403.

Dal-Briar later orally expanded its limine motion, asking that Durbin be completely prohibited from putting on evidence about any other terminations. The trial court agreed, and not only prohibited Durbin from mentioning the other two lawsuits against Dal-Briar, it prohibited him from mentioning any specific incident of discrimination against worker’s compensation claimants other than himself. In addition, the trial court excluded the evidence of a second supervisory employee, Kevin Johnson, who would have testified that the mine’s supervisors had instructions from Dallas that “if somebody was injured on the job that they would find a way to terminate them,” and that ten people with compensation claims were fired while Johnson worked at Dal-Briar. Thus, Durbin’s only evidence of Dal-Briar’s policy came from Mack Minyard, his immediate supervisor, who was allowed to testify only in general terms:

Q: Did Dal-Briar have the policy of how it treated certain employees who had too many workmen’s comp claims?
A: Yes.
Q: What was that policy?
A: Get rid of them.
Q: Where did that policy come from?
A: From Dallas.
Q: Who over in Dallas gave you that policy?
A: • Bob Brittingham and Bill Cox.
Q: Did you ever hear it from any other employees or secretaries or anything?
A: Yes, sir.
Q: Do you recall who they might be?
A: Doris Crockett.

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Bluebook (online)
871 S.W.2d 263, 1994 WL 32191, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/durbin-v-dal-briar-corp-texapp-1994.