Employers' Casualty Co. v. Watson

32 S.W.2d 927
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedNovember 20, 1930
DocketNo. 2031.
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 32 S.W.2d 927 (Employers' Casualty Co. v. Watson) 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
Employers' Casualty Co. v. Watson, 32 S.W.2d 927 (Tex. Ct. App. 1930).

Opinion

O’QUINN, J.

The Employers’ Casualty Company brought this suit in the district court of Harris county, Tex., to set aside an award of the Industrial Accident Board awarding ap-pellee compensation for the total loss of the sight of his left eye.

Appellee answered by general demurrer and cross-action, setting up the right to recover for the total and permanent loss of the sight of his left eye, and prayed for recovery in a lump sum.

Appellant, by supplemental petition, answered appellee’s cross-action by general demurrer, general denial, and specially that if appellee suffered an injury he sustained same while in a state of intoxication, and while in the act of unlawfully attempting to injure another person.

The court overruled appellant’s general demurrer to appellee’s cross-action, and the case was tried to a jury upon special issues, in answer to which they found that appellee had sustained the total loss of the use of his left eye, and that at the time he suffered such loss he was not willfully attempting to injure another. On the findings of the jury judgment was rendered for appellee for compensation at the rate of $12 per week for 100 weeks, payable in a lump sum, as for the loss of an eye. The judgment further awarded to J. N. Snell, attorney for appellee, one-third of the amount recovered as attorney’s fee. Motion for a new trial was overruled, and the case is before us on appeal.

Appellant’s first proposition asserts error in the court’s overruling its exception to the court’s charge because of its failure to submit to the jury an issue as to whether the injury received by appellee was received by him while he was in a state of intoxication, and the court’s further refusing to give to the jury its special requested issue, by appellant, submitting said issue.

The statute, article 8309, section 1, second subdivision 3 of said article, provides that the term “injury sustained in the course of employment” shall not include “an injury received while in a state of intoxication.” It is contended that if appellee was injured' while in a state of intoxication, this would *928 be and was a complete defense to bis suit or claim for compensation. Tbis defense was pleaded by appellant ■ and tbe evidence abundantly raised tbe issue. The court failed to charge on tbis issue, and refused to give appellant’s special requested charge submitting same for tbe jury’s finding. If the statute is given a strict and literal interpretation, then appellant’s assignment should be sustained. But we do not believe tbe court erred in refusing tbis special issue requested because there was no charge requested to accompany said first requested charge as to whether, if appellee was in a state of intoxication, that such intoxication was a proximate cause of his injury. We think that the mere- fact that an injured employee was in a state of intoxication at the time he received his injury should not bar him from the right to compensation regardless of whether it had to do with his receiving his injury or not, but that if the intoxi'cation contributes to his injury or caused same then -the law applies. Suppose an employer who is constructing a three-story building has one employee at work on the third story, and another at work on the ground around the base of the building, and this employee working at the base becomes in a state of intoxication, but not so as to incapacitate him for work, and he is in the -actual discharge of his work when the workman at the top lets fall a brick or piece of timber that strikes the employee at the base and seriously injures him; should it be said in that- case that the- injured employee is not entitled to compensation although his being in a state of intoxication in no manner contributed to or caused his injury? We do not think such was the intent of -the law, but that the law inended that where the state of intoxication incapacitated the employee, in that it rendered him less capable of caring for and protecting himself against accident or danger, or caused him to be quarrelsome or insulting toward other persons, or had to do with causing him to commit an unlawful assault upon such other person,-then in that case he would not be entitled to compensation. In other words, the state of intoxication was the proximate cause of his injuries, or contributed to his receiving same, by reason of which he is not entitled to compensation. Both -the issue of intoxication and whether such intoxication was a proximate cause of appellee’s receiving his injury were proper and material, but under the facts above stated, the court did not err in refusing the requested charge because a finding that appellee was in a state of intoxication at the time he received his injury, without a further finding that such intoxication was a proximate cause of -the injury, would have been a finding on a merely evi-dentiary matter, and not the finding of an ultimate ,fact.

The second proposition complains that the court erred in refusing appellant’s motion for a directed verdict. This contention is based upon the fact that the evidence did not show that appellee had suffered the total and permanent loss of the sight of his eye, but showed that appellee s'till had some small degree of sight perception. Appellee pleaded the total and permanent loss of the sight of his left eye. He was awarded judgment for the total loss of the sight of an eye.

Dr. S. T. Pulliam, a witness for appellant, testified in substance that he saw appellee several times right after the accident and treated him for the injury. He said that appellee’s vision was about 2%oo off. He said:

“As to it not totally destroying the vision of this man’s eye, as I say, if I remember right it was a little less than 2%oo I am quite sure; that means he had a little sight.”

Again, he said:

“I think the glasses I put over his left eye corrected his vision to some extent; I think it helped a little. I do not know how much loss of vision he had, but my records, if I had them, would show exactly. However, I think he had a little vision in that left eye. I think the glasses I put over that eye helped his vision some; I do not know how much, but some. It must have improved it some, but I have no personal recollection of how much his vision in that eye was improved. If I could find my records I could tell you exactly. I -remember that he had a mighty bad eye. Migh-ty bad eye distress injury and I knew that he had a ruptured chroid. My treatment of his eye caused the inflammation to subside. I know that he had considerable loss of vision. I think he was practically blind at one time, is my recollection of the case, practically a total loss of vision; my recollection is that he had about a 2%oo probably at the time I discharged him. There is a little bit of the vision left in the left eye, but not enough to do any good with. He might have been able to see a horse or a cow.”

He further testified:

. “2%o vision is what he had at that time, soon after the injury. It was very poor vision. You can’t read a newspaper with that vision. You can only see very large objects. It is not a useful vision. I do remember that one test his vision was 2¾00- With a vision as I state, with that reduction in Ms vision, he could only tell very large objects. The distance away you indicate, he would hardly be able to count four fingers with this vision out of that left eye. I did say that he could tell what large objects were.

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32 S.W.2d 927, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/employers-casualty-co-v-watson-texapp-1930.