Southern Underwriters v. Alvidrez

140 S.W.2d 355, 1940 Tex. App. LEXIS 350
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedApril 25, 1940
DocketNo. 3942
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 140 S.W.2d 355 (Southern Underwriters v. Alvidrez) 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
Southern Underwriters v. Alvidrez, 140 S.W.2d 355, 1940 Tex. App. LEXIS 350 (Tex. Ct. App. 1940).

Opinion

PRICE, Chief Justice.

Southern Underwriters prosecutes this appeal by writ of error to review the judgment of the District Court of El Paso, [356]*356County in an action to set aside an award of the Industrial Accident Board in favor of defendants in error. The judgment assailed awards to defendants in error compensation at the rate of $8.31 per week, for 360 weeks, and one-third of which recovery is awarded to the respective attorneys for defendants in error. The judgment further provides that $175 of the compensation awarded he paid to Kaster & Maxon for the burial of the deceased workman, Reyes Alvidrez.

The facts involving liability are few, simple and practically undisputed. At all relevant times here involved plaintiff in error had in effect a workmen’s compensation policy covering the employees of the El Paso Refining Company in the plant of that concern in the City of El Paso. On May 6, 1936, Reyes Alvidrez, an employee of the El Paso Refining Company, while acting in the scope of his employment, was killed by an explosion occurring when he was seeking to charge an oxygen drum in the plant of his employer. Mr. Alvidrez left surviving him his wife, Mrs. Ricarda Alvidrez, Dolores and Maria Al-vidrez, daughters, Reyes and Roberto Al-vidrez, sons, and another daughter, Maria de Socorro Alvidrez, a minor, residing in Mexico. Mrs. Alvidrez gave due and requisite notice to plaintiff in error, and thereafter, on the 29th day of May, 1936, filed claim for his death with the Industrial Accident Board. In this claim the beneficiaries are set forth as those hereinbefore named as surviving deceased Alvidrez, except Maria de Socorro Al-vidrez is 'not specifically named as such. In the claim filed is the following: “This claim for compensation, with respect to such injury and because of the death of deceased, is made in behalf of and for each and all of the legal Beneficiaries of the deceased, as well as by and for the undersigned, he herein acting for himself and such legal Beneficiaries.”

Upon hearing, the Board denied the claim of Roberto, Reyes and Maria (not Maria de Socorro Alvidrez), and allowed the claim of Mrs. Alvidrez and Dolores at the compensation rate of $8.31 per week, dividing same equally between the two said compensation claimants.

Plaintiff in error gave notice of dissatisfaction with the award, and in due time filed suit to set same aside. In this suit Mrs. Alvidrez and Dolores were made defendants.

Now from here on the procedure becomes somewhat more complicated. Suffice it to say, that the plaintiff in error dismissed its suit. The defendants in the suit filed cross-action seeking to recover under the Workmen’s Compensation Act, Vernon’s Ann.Civ.St., art. 8306 et seq.; plaintiff in error filed many and various pleas to the jurisdiction and in abatement, which were all overruled by the court. During the course of the proceeding Maria de Socorro Alvidrez, acting through her next friend, Eugene Edwards, Esq., asked and was granted leave to intervene. She averred in substance that she was a minor dependent daughter of deceased Reyes Alvidrez, and sought compensation on account of the death of her father.

To this plea of intervention of Maria de Socorro plaintiff in error filed a plea to the jurisdiction, setting up its notice and appeal from the Industrial Accident Board, its filing of suit, and that the defendants, nor either of them, gave notice of their unwillingness to abide by the ruling and decision of the Board, and were relying solely upon the notice given by plaintiff in error to said Board, and hence the court had not acquired jurisdiction of the subject matter or the parties.

We think that all matters of merit arising in this appeal will be . disposed of by discussing three matters presented by plaintiff in error: First, as to the jurisdiction of the court in the matter of the intervention of Maria de Socorro Alvidrez; second, as to error assigned in the matter of the court’s charge on the burden of proof; and, third, as to the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the compensation rate.

In regard to the jurisdictional question, as we have heretofore shown, Maria de Socorro was not specifically named in the claim filed by Mrs. Alvidrez. The general clause in the claim has been set forth. We think the court had jurisdiction in the premises over the claim asserted by the intervention of Maria de Socorro Alvidrez; that likewise there was jurisdiction over the claims of the two defendants. Texas Employers’ Ins. Ass’n v. Williams, Tex.Civ.App., 57 S.W.2d 218; Lloyds Casualty Co. v. Meredith, Tex.Civ.App., 63 S.W.2d 1051; Traders & General Ins. Co. v. Boysen, Tex.Civ.App., 123 S.W.2d 1016, writ dismissed. The filing of the claim gave jurisdiction over the subject matter. The other claimants [357]*357mentioned in the claim before the Board not being made defendants nor having appealed in their own right, the action of the Board as to them has become final.

The issues as formulated by the court placed the burden of proof in the usual and customary manner. To each of the sixteen issues submitted plaintiff in error interposed the following objection : “Cross-defendant, The Southern Underwriters, further objects and excepts to Special Issue No. -, as submitted, because the same does not furnish any guide or direction as to whom the burden of proof is on, and equally places upon the cross-defendant, The Southern Underwriters, the burden of establishing the negative of such issue, to its detriment and prejudice, and constitutes a charge upon the weight of the evidence.”

The concluding paragraph of its exceptions is as follows: “Cross-defendant, The Southern Underwriters, further objects and excepts to the main charge of the court on the burden of proof because it points out and accentuates and directs to the jury the legal effect of their answers, and especially with reference to the cross-plaintiff recovering as against this cross-defendant, The Southern Underwriters.”

The exception last quoted appears as a part of plaintiff in error’s statement under its proposition. The exception first quoted does not so appear. The exception relied upon is addressed to the main charge. In the main charge there is no charge on the burden of proof. By supplemental charges one and two the court met the objection sixteen times made in the exceptions, and did give a charge specifically placing the burden of proof on intervener and cross-plaintiffs. Here the position is that the issues as formulated in the main charge were sufficient as to the burden of proof. This was not the position in the trial court. If the supplemental charges were erroneous, and we think such is the case as to defendants in error, it presents, we think, a case of invited error. Plaintiff in error induced the court to adopt its theory and then excepted thereto. We are of the opinion that it is in the same position as though it had specifically requested the supplemental charges. Be that as it may, the error was harmless. In reality there was but one contested issue in this case: that was as to the compensation base. A charge that the burden was on defendants in error could in no way have harmed plaintiff in error in informing the jury as to the legal effect as to their answer.

The purpose of the whole proceeding was a recovery.

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140 S.W.2d 355, 1940 Tex. App. LEXIS 350, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/southern-underwriters-v-alvidrez-texapp-1940.