Mathis v. Charter Oak Fire Insurance Co.

707 S.W.2d 234, 1986 Tex. App. LEXIS 12745
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedMarch 13, 1986
DocketNo. 12-84-0002-CV
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 707 S.W.2d 234 (Mathis v. Charter Oak Fire 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
Mathis v. Charter Oak Fire Insurance Co., 707 S.W.2d 234, 1986 Tex. App. LEXIS 12745 (Tex. Ct. App. 1986).

Opinion

COLLEY, Justice.

This is a workers’ compensation case. While employed by Kelly Springfield Tire Company, William H. Mathis sustained four compensable general injuries to his back. The injuries occurred one each year in 1978, 1979, 1980 and 1981. Charter Oak Fire Insurance Company was Kelly Springfield’s compensation carrier at the times of the 1978 and 1979 injuries. Travelers Indemnity Company was the carrier when the 1980 and 1981 injuries occurred.

On December 31, 1981, the Industrial Accident Board made awards of compensation under the Workers’ Compensation Act1 to Mathis for each of the injuries. Charter Oak and Travelers (together “the companies”) brought separate suits in the district courts of Smith County to set aside these awards.2 The four suits were consolidated for trial on the companies’ motions. Trial was to a jury who found that each injury was a producing cause of total and permanent incapacity. In response to contribution issues submitted, the jury found that the 1978, 1979 and 1980 injuries respectively contributed to Mathis’ successive incapacities as follows: 1978 injury, 40%; 1979 injury, 20%; and 1980 injury, 40%. No contribution issue respecting the 1981 injury was submitted. On that verdict, the trial court rendered judgment in favor of Mathis for compensation in a lump sum on Cause No. 82-137 and granted take-nothing judgments against Mathis in Cause Nos. 82-134, 82-135 and 82-136. The take-nothing judgments in Cause Nos. 82-136, 82-135, and 82-134 were apparently granted in response to the companies’ motions for judgment n.o.v.

Charter Oak presents a single point of error in its appeal in Cause No. 82-137, contending that the court erred in overruling its motion for judgment n.o.v. “because there was no evidence to support the jury’s answer to Special Issue No. 11” dealing with wage rate.3

By two cross-points in Cause Nos. 82-136, 82-135 and 82-134, the companies argue that the take-nothing judgments in these cases should be affirmed in any event “for lack of evidence to support the wage rate finding” made by the jury in response to Special Issues 24, 37 and 50. Alternatively, the companies argue that should this court reverse the judgments in these causes, a remand should be ordered because the four findings of total and permanent incapacity are in irreconcilable conflict “with themselves and the contribution findings. ...”

Mathis appeals from the take-nothing judgments entered in Cause Nos. 82-134, 82-135 and 82-136. He alleges by his first four points of error that the trial court erred in granting the companies’ motions for judgment n.o.v. in Cause Nos. 82-136 [236]*236and 82-135, the 1979 and 1980 injuries because, considering the verdict and the undisputed evidence relating to wage rate, the court should have signed and rendered a judgment in Mathis’ favor for compensation in a lump sum 4 in those causes. Under his final two points of error, Mathis asserts that the court erred in overruling his motion for mistrial and in granting the take-nothing judgment in Cause No. 82-134 because an “irreconcilable conflict” exists between the jury’s findings that Mathis suffered total and permanent incapacity resulting from the 1981 injury, and the findings of the jury in response to the contribution issues.5

The companies present no evidentiary points regarding jury findings except with reference to the wage rate finding in each case. None of the parties complain of the form of submission of the contribution issues in Cause Nos. 82-137, 82-136 and 82-135 or to the court’s failure to submit a contribution issue in Cause No. 82-134.

We affirm the judgment in Cause No. 82-137; reverse the take-nothing judgments in Cause Nos. 82-136 and 82-135 and render judgments in favor of Mathis in those two cases; and affirm the judgment in Cause No. 82-134.

Mathis’ rights to compensation in these cases must be determined solely by the provisions of the Act for as Judge Hickman observed in Rogers v. Traders & General Insurance Company, 135 Tex. 149, 139 S.W.2d 784, 785 (1940), “the right of a claimant to recover compensation does not rest at all upon the common law, but upon the statutes alone, which both create and measure that right.”

A worker who has waived his common law and statutory rights of action, and who thereafter sustains an injury in the course of his employment with a subscriber under the Worker’s Compensation Act, “shall be paid compensation by the [carrier]” as provided by the Act. TEX.REV.CIV.STAT. ANN. art. 8306, §§ 3a and 3b (Vernon 1967). The Act as it existed at all times relevant to this appeal provided compensation for total incapacity as follows:

Sec. 10. While the incapacity for work resulting from the injury is total, the association shall pay the injured employee a weekly compensation equal to sixty-six and two-thirds per cent (66⅜%) of his average weekly wages, but not more than the maximum weekly benefit nor less than the minimum weekly benefit set forth in Section 29 of this article, and in no case shall the period covered by such compensation be greater than four hundred and one (401) weeks from the date of injury.

Act of May 15, 1973, ch. 88, § 5, 1973 Tex.Gen.Laws 187, 189 (current version at TEX.REV.CIV.STAT.ANN. art. 8306 § 10 (Vernon Supp.1986)).6

Because Mathis seeks compensation for successive general injuries, we must also consult, construe and apply the Act’s section 12c which was in effect at the times when Mathis sustained these injuries.7 That section reads as follows:

Sec. 12c. If an employee who has suffered a previous injury shall suffer a subsequent injury which results in a condition of incapacity to which both injuries or their effects have contributed, the association shall be liable because of such injury only for the compensation to [237]*237which the subsequent injury would have entitled the injured employee had there been no previous injury; provided that there shall be created a fund known as the ‘Second Injury Fund,’ hereinafter described, from which an employee who has suffered a subsequent injury shall be compensated for the combined incapacities resulting from both injuries. Provided further, however, that notice of injury to the employer and filing of a claim with the Industrial Accident Board as required by law shall also be deemed and considered notice to and filing of a claim against the ‘Second Injury fund.’

Act of June 16, 1977, ch. 801, § 1, 1977 Tex.Gen.Laws, 2004, 2005 (amended 1985).

In their reply to Mathis’ contention that the trial court should have rendered judgments for him in Cause Nos. 82-136 and 82-135, the companies assert that a worker is entitled to but one award for total and permanent incapacity produced by a general injury, and since the jury found that the initial injury in 1978 was a producing cause of total and permanent incapacity to which the subsequent injuries could not have contributed, the language of section 12c “deems the 1978 injury to contribute 100% of Mathis’ present incapacity.” In addition, the companies contend that section 10 limits Mathis’ recovery to a period of 401 weeks.

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Bluebook (online)
707 S.W.2d 234, 1986 Tex. App. LEXIS 12745, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mathis-v-charter-oak-fire-insurance-co-texapp-1986.