Pacific Indemnity Co. v. Arline

213 S.W.2d 691, 1948 Tex. App. LEXIS 1441
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedApril 22, 1948
DocketNo. 4506
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 213 S.W.2d 691 (Pacific Indemnity Co. v. Arline) 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
Pacific Indemnity Co. v. Arline, 213 S.W.2d 691, 1948 Tex. App. LEXIS 1441 (Tex. Ct. App. 1948).

Opinions

WALKER, Justice.

This is a workmen’s compensation case. The employee is Ruby Arline. The insurer is Pacific Indemnity Company. The employer is Consolidated Steel Corporation.

Employee brought the action as an appeal from an award of the Industrial Accident Board. He alleged that on April 16, 1946, while attempting, during the course of his employment, to lift and empty a heavy steel barrel, he severely strained his side and back; and was then and there totally incapacitated by reason of his injury to work and earn money; and further, that this incapacity, so caused, had continued to exist since the injury occurred, and would exist for a period of 145 weeks from the date of said injury. He also alleged an impairment of vision in his left eye, accompanied by headaches, but he abandoned these allegations on trial, admitting that he sustained no injury to his eye while he was employed by the aforesaid employer. He prayed recovery of compensation benefits under the Workmen’s Compensation law for the aforesaid period of 145 weeks.

Insurer filed a general denial and three special pleas by way of defense: (1) That any disability employee had on April 16, 1946, and since was “solely the result of disease, physical defects, or other causes, not in any way connected” with any accidental injury alleged by employee; or (2), in the alternative, that if employee sustained an injury on April 16, 1946, resulting in compensable disability this disability terminated not later than 12 weeks after said date, and any subsequent disability was solely the result of .other, non-com-pensable disease, physical defects or other causes; or (3), still further in the alternative, that any disability employee may nave had after April 16, 1946, was only partially caused by accidental injury and, to the extent thus caused, was temporary, and that the balance of employee’s disability was the sole result of other, non-compensable disease, defects or causes.

The action was tried to a jury, and on their verdict, the trial court rendered judgment in employee's behalf, as prayed for by him. Insurer has appealed. We make the following additional statement from the record as a .basis for our judgment:

The trial court submitted the issues of injury and incapacity to the jury by the following definitions and special issues:

“You are instructed that wherever the .term ‘injury’ or ‘personal injury’ is used in this charge, same shall be construed to mean damage or harm to the physical [693]*693structures of the body and such diseases or infection as naturally result therefrom.
* * * * * *
"The term ‘injury'sustained in the course of employment’ as used in this charge, shall not include: 1. An injury caused by the act of God * * *. 2. An injury caused by an act of a third person intended to injure the employee because of reasons personal to him * * *. 3. An injury received while in a state'of intoxication; 4. An injury caused by the employee’s willful intention and attempt to injure himself, or * * * some other person.
“But said quoted phrase shall include all other injuries of every kind and character having to do with and originating in the work, business, trade, or profession of the employer received by an employee while engaged in or about the furtherance of the affairs or business of his employer, whether upon employer’s premises or elsewhere.
* ⅜ * * * *
“You are instructed that as a matter of law in this case the plaintiff did not receive any injury to his eye on April 16th, 1946, and further that the plaintiff sustained no disability in his eye that was in any way caused by an injury received in the course of his employment for Consolidated Steel Corporation.
You are instructed that the phrase ‘total incapacity’ as used in the Court’s charge does not imply an absolute disability to perform any kind of labor, but a person disqualified from performing the usual tasks of a workman in such a way as to enable him to procure and retain employment is ordinarily regarded as totally incapacitated.
“By ‘partial incapacity’ is meant such incapacity as prevents one from performing some of the duties of an ordinary workman —in other words, any disability less than 100%.
“By the term ‘accidental injury’ as used in this charge is meant one of a calamitous nature, happening by chance, or unexpectedly, and taking place not according to the usual course of things.
******
“(Issue 1): Do you find from a preponderance of the evidence that Ruby Arline sustained an injury on or about April 16, 1946? Answer: Yes.
“(Issue 2): Do you find — that said injury, if any, was an accidental injury? Answer: Yes.
“(Issue 3): Do you find — that the injury, if any — was sustained by Ruby Arline because of emptying a garbage barrel into a truck? Answer: Yes.
“(Issue 4) : Do you find — that said injury, if any — sustained by Ruby Arline, was an injury sustained in the course of his employment for Consolidated Steel Corporation? Answer: Yes.
“(Issue 5) : Do you find' — that said injury, if any — sustained by Ruby Arline, resulted, in total incapacity? Answer: Yes.
“(Issue 6) : — when did that total incapacity, if any — begin? Answer: April 16, 1946.
“(Issue 7): — how many weeks of such total incapacity, if any, do you find was sustained by Ruby Arline, from and after the beginning date — ? Answer: Yes. 145 weeks.
“(Issue 8): Do you find — that said injury, if any, sustained by Ruby Arline, resulted in any partial incapacity to work? Answer: No. Totally disabled.
“(Issue 12): Do you find — that Ruby Arline worked in the same or similar employment, in the same or neighboring place, working at the time of the injury in question, as much as, or close to, or nearly three hundred days of the year just before ■April 16, 1946? Answer: Yes.
“(Issue 14) : Do you find — that Ruby Arline’s incapacity, if any — , is not due solely to disease? Answer: It is not due solely to disease.
“(Issue 15): Do you find — that the incapacity of the plaintiff, if any — is not due solely to physical defects or other causes disconnected with the injury, if any, alleged to have occurred on April 16, 1946, if any ? Answer: It is not due solely to physical defects or other causes disconnected with said injury alleged to have occurred on April 16, 1946.”

The jury’s findings under these issues were based upon the following proof:

[694]*694(a) Employee is a negro man. On April 16, 1946, he was (as he had been for over a year before) a member of a four man crew whose duty it was to go about employer’s yard at Orange, Texas, with a trade, and to collect and carry away in this track the daily accumulation of refuse which was an incident of employer’s shipbuilding operations. This refuse was placed in barrels by other persons, and employee and his crew were required to empty these barrels into their truck and subsequently, to unload this truck at a certain place.

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Bluebook (online)
213 S.W.2d 691, 1948 Tex. App. LEXIS 1441, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/pacific-indemnity-co-v-arline-texapp-1948.