Gonzales v. Texas Employers' Insurance Ass'n

419 S.W.2d 203, 1967 Tex. App. LEXIS 2574
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJune 28, 1967
Docket11478
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 419 S.W.2d 203 (Gonzales v. Texas Employers' Insurance Ass'n) 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
Gonzales v. Texas Employers' Insurance Ass'n, 419 S.W.2d 203, 1967 Tex. App. LEXIS 2574 (Tex. Ct. App. 1967).

Opinions

O’QUINN, Justice.

Baudelia Carmona Gonzales in August of 1964 worked at the task of washing chickens for the L. East Produce firm. She suffered an injury at work, and sought and obtained an award from the Industrial Accident Board. Within the time allowed by law she brought her suit in district court.

This appeal is from judgment of district court setting aside the Board’s award and allowing recovery of medical expenses in the amount of $696. The jury found in answer to special issues that Mrs. Gonzales’ injury resulted in partial incapacity for 17 weeks and that during this period she had a weekly wage earning capacity of $50. It was stipulated that Mrs. Gonzales had not worked 210 days during the year prior to her injury but that another female employee of the same firm who had worked 212 days at the same work earned an average of $48.63 per week. Mrs. Gonzales alleged that her average weekly wage before and at the time of her injury was $58, or, in the alternative, an average weekly wage of $58 would be fair and just to her and to appellee if computation as required by law was not possible.

Under eleven assignments of error, appellant makes three main contentions. Appellant argues (1) that the jury finding that appellant had a weekly wage earning capacity of $50 during disability was not supported by the evidence; (2) that the finding of no total disability, and only partial disability for 17 weeks, was not supported by the evidence; and (3) that cross examination of the doctor who treated appellant, regarding his non-membership in the county medical society, coupled with references to the various other doctors who saw appellant, and argument of counsel to the jury regarding failure of one doctor to testify, caused the jury to return an improper verdict.

Appellant argues that she can not be partially disabled, as found by the jury, without suffering some reduction in her earning capacity. In making this argument, appellant stressed that there was no contention of an inconsistency between the jury finding of $50 per week earning “capacity” and the stipulation that the “actual” earnings of another worker doing the same j ob were $48.63 per week.

The Supreme Court held in 1961, in a case in which the parties stipulated the average weekly wage to be $86.80, that jury findings of (1) partial disability and (2) average weekly wage earning capacity [206]*206during disability of $86.80 were not fatal, “even when considered with the stipulation of the plaintiff’s average weekly wages.” Indemnity Insurance Company of North America v. Craik, 162 Tex. 260, 346 S.W.2d 830.

We find no substantial difference between the definition of “partial disability” submitted in the case before this Court and the definition construed by the Supreme Court in the Craik case, supra, 346 S. W.2d 830, 831, col. 2. In that case the Court observed that under this definition the jury could find that the claimant had suffered a partial disability without finding that he had suffered “a depreciation or deduction in his earning capacity.” The Court distinguished this definition from the definition used in Employers Reinsurance Corporation v. Holland, 162 Tex. 394, 347 S.W.2d 605, 606, col. 1. In the Craik case, the Supreme Court observed that the definition of “partial disability” in that case was approved in Southern Underwriters v. Schoolcraft, 138 Tex. 323, 158 S.W.2d 991, 994, col. 1.

Appellant pleaded that her average weekly wage was $58. The stipulation of $48.83 as the average weekly wage was not a matter before the jury. The finding of the jury that appellant’s average weekly earning capacity was $50 provided a figure less than the wage alleged by appellant. It is the general rule that a pleading that has not been abandoned, superseded or amended, will be regarded, for the purpose of use as such in a particular case, as a judicial admission, rather than just an ordinary admission. Hughes v. Fort Worth National Bank, Tex.Civ.App., Fort Worth, 164 S.W.2d 231 (writ ref.).

In this case the pleadings for the purpose of use in the suit, were abandoned, or substitution was made for the pleadings, when appellant entered into the stipulation of a weekly wage of $48.83. The pleadings of weekly earnings of $58 will not be binding on her, although by her failure to correct or change the pleadings to conform to the stipulation, the jury may have assumed she still claimed a weekly wage of $58. We are unable to see how a claim of weekly earnings in the amount of $58, however, can have any real relation to the jury’s finding that Mrs. Gonzales had an average weekly wage earning capacity of $50. We believe this finding is not sufficiently supported by the evidence.

It was appellant’s burden to prove that her average weekly wage earning capacity after the date of her injury was less than her weekly wage at the time she was injured. Employers Reinsurance Corp. v. Wagner, Tex.Civ.App., Galveston, 250 S.W.2d 420 (writ ref., n. r. e.).

Prior to employment at East Produce, appellant had worked in 1953 for an ice cream plant where she was paid $18 a week. For about three months, late in 1963 or early in 1954, she worked for a laundry where her weekly wage was $25. The record does not disclose any employment, by which an average weekly wage earning capacity might be gauged, except her work at the ice cream plant, the laundry, and at East Produce.

Mrs. Gonzales had been working for East Produce about three weeks when she was injured. At the time of her injury, ■ Mrs. Gonzales was standing on an iron table, about three or four feet high, wearing a pair of rubber boots as she washed chickens passing in front of her on a conveyor wire. In her right hand she held a little pipe, connected with a water hose, by means of which she applied a stream of water to the chickens. The top of the table was wet and slippery. All of a sudden she slipped and almost fell down. She helped to maintain her balance by holding to the pipe. She told her boss, who was coming up, about the incident and said to him she was scared because she almost fell down. He asked whether she was hurt and she replied, “Well, I don’t know.”

[207]*207Mrs. Gonzales finished the day at work, but early next morning she returned to the plant and told one of the workers she would not work that day because her back was hurting. On the recommendation of one worker, Mrs. Gonzales went to a chiropractor. On the same day, however, she went to a doctor who had previously attended her mother.

The doctor, Dr. Raul B. Mascarenhas, examined Mrs. Gonzales, found no fractures or dislocations of hones, and diagnosed her injury as “sprain of the muscles.” The injury occurred August 18, and on August 24, the Monday following, she returned to work on the doctor’s recommendation. Mrs. Gonzales worked about two and a half hours that day, but quit because of pain and went back to see Dr. Mascar-enhas. Mrs. Gonzales received treatment from Dr. Mascarenhas from August, when she was hurt, until April 13 of the next year.

Dr.

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

Related

Sosa v. Central Power & Light Co.
901 S.W.2d 562 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1995)
Haryanto v. Saeed
860 S.W.2d 913 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1993)
Payne v. Vinson
761 S.W.2d 474 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1988)
Lozano v. Vigilant Insurance Co.
714 S.W.2d 393 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1986)
Zamora v. Romero
581 S.W.2d 742 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1979)
Employers Mutual Liability Insurance Co. of Wisconsin v. Butler
511 S.W.2d 323 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1974)
Menasco v. State
503 S.W.2d 273 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 1973)
Utica Mutual Insurance Company v. Jacobs
483 S.W.2d 500 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1972)
Gonzales v. Texas Employers' Insurance Ass'n
419 S.W.2d 203 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1967)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
419 S.W.2d 203, 1967 Tex. App. LEXIS 2574, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/gonzales-v-texas-employers-insurance-assn-texapp-1967.