James v. Vernon Calhoun Packing Company

498 S.W.2d 160, 16 Tex. Sup. Ct. J. 440, 1973 Tex. LEXIS 274

• Court: Texas Supreme Court
• Decided: July 25, 1973
• Docket: B-3708
• Status: Published

Opinions

WALKER, Justice.

Clifford James brought this suit against his former employer, Vernon Calhoun Packing Company, to recover damages for breach of an alleged contract for lifetime employment. Special exceptions to plaintiff’s petition were sustained by the trial court. When plaintiff failed to. amend within the time allowed by the court, the suit was dismissed. The Court of Civil Appeals affirmed. 486 S.W.2d 396. We affirm.

According to the allegations of plaintiff’s petition, he was formerly employed by defendant packing company, which carried workmen’s compensation insurance. On May 29, 1962, he sustained a compensa-ble injury while in the course and scope of his employment and gave timely notice of the injury. Defendant urged plaintiff not to file a claim for compensation and promised that if he did not do so he would be given light work as a supervisor of boning operations and would be retained in that position as long as he lived or desired to work. Plaintiff accepted the offer and did not file a claim for compensation. He was employed by defendant as supervisor of boning operations for over seven years. At the end of that period he was returned to the actual boning of meat. He was unable to do this work satisfactorily and was discharged in violation of the agreement.

Plaintiff asserted two theories of recovery, fraud and breach of contract. Defendant filed special exceptions to the fraud allegations urging: (1) that no cause of action was stated and (2) that the damage allegations were vague and general, failed to set up a proper measure of damages, and did not apprise defendant of the proof it would be required to meet or the measure of damages relied upon by plaintiff. All of the exceptions were sustained by the trial court. Since the ruling on the second exception mentioned above was not brought forward for review, it is unnecessary to consider the fraud count. We do not attempt to determine whether there might be a cause of action for fraud against an employer who induced an employee to forego a claim for compensation by making promises known by the employer to be unenforceable.

Plaintiff did bring forward for review a ruling by the trial court that the alleged agreement is unenforceable. This ruling is based upon and fully supported by Woolsey v. Panhandle Refining Co., 131 Tex. 449, 116 S.W.2d 675, where an employee was denied a right of recovery for breach of a similar agreement. The contract was held to be unenforceable by virtue of Art. 8306, § 14 Vernon’s Ann.Civ. St., which provides:

No agreement by an employe to waive his rights to compensation under this law shall be valid.

The application for writ of error in the present case was granted with the view of reexamining our decision in Woolsey. After further consideration, we have concluded that the holding is not so unsound that the case should be overruled after these many years. The statute could mean simply that the employee may disaffirm the agreement at his option. It could also mean, as held in Woolsey, that the entire agreement is invalid. The latter construction was adopted in the belief that it better serves the policy of the state as declared in the Workmen’s Compensation Law.

The statute provides an exclusive remedy for those who accept its provisions, fixes the compensation to be paid an employee who is injured in the course of his employment, permits him to collect from his employer’s insurance carrier, which will ordinarily be subject to both process and execution, and requires that a lump sum settlement be approved by the Board. This plan and scheme will be frustrated in many instances if an injured workman is allowed to choose between the compensation benefits provided by law and a private settlement offered to him by his employer. In view of the employer-employee relationship, the relative bargaining position of the parties, and the fact that the full extent and effect of injuries cannot always be determined promptly, it seems likely that a substantial number of employees would ultimately regret having waived their compensation benefits to obtain settlements that later prove to be either inadequate or uncollectible.

As noted by the Court in Woolsey, the holding that the contract is unenforceable undoubtedly works a hardship on an employee 'not familiar with the law who has made an advantageous settlement. It would be quite anomalous, however, to say that a statute must be given a particular interpretation to avoid hardship to one who acts in ignorance of his legal rights. The construction adopted in Woolsey is calculated to prevent injured workmen from making unfortunate settlements of their claims. It is for this reason that the Court concluded that its holding would be far less disastrous to the great army of employees operating under the Workmen’s Compensation Law than to allow an employee to enforce a contract in which he bargained away his rights under that law.

The following excerpt from the.opinion in Employers’ Indem. Corp. v. Woods, Tex.Com.App., 243 S.W. 1085, is quite pertinent :

We are much impressed with the idea that there is a large element of public interest in the administration of this Compensation Act. The only body which can protect the public is the Accident Board. It would be idle to expect the employer or the insurance company to exercise any particular degree of care in behalf of the public. Their natural desire would be to get rid of the claim as economically as possible to themselves. It is also true that the injured employee is frequently tempted to accept a sum which, paid all at once, looks large to him, and thereby, in fact, “sell his birthright for a mess of pottage.” The Accident Board alone can protect the public interest and in a large measure save these claimants from themselves. Many of them do not need this protection. If so, the supervision of the Accident Board, at least, does no harm. To those who do need it, the supervision is exceedingly valuable.

We are dealing here with a statute, and the doctrine of stare decisis has its greatest force in the area of statutory construction. See Marmon v. Mustang Aviation, Inc., Tex.Sup., 430 S.W.2d 182; Moss v. Gibbs, Tex.Sup., 370 S.W.2d 452; Rowe v. Spencer, 70 Tex. 78, 8 S.W. 60. The Legislature has met in regular session eighteen times since Woolsey was decided in 1938, and the statutory provision in question has not been changed. In these circumstances and since the construction adopted 35 years ago is entirely reasonable, it is our opinion that the meaning of the statute should not be changed now except by legislative enactment.

The judgments of the courts below are affirmed.

Dissenting opinion by SAM D. JOHNSON, J., joined by STEAKLEY and REAVLEY, JJ. DANIEL, J., notes his dissent.