TEXAS EMPLOYEES'INSURANCE ASSOCIATION v. McDaniel

286 S.W.2d 465, 1956 Tex. App. LEXIS 1991
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJanuary 23, 1956
Docket6565
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 286 S.W.2d 465 (TEXAS EMPLOYEES'INSURANCE ASSOCIATION v. McDaniel) 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
TEXAS EMPLOYEES'INSURANCE ASSOCIATION v. McDaniel, 286 S.W.2d 465, 1956 Tex. App. LEXIS 1991 (Tex. Ct. App. 1956).

Opinion

PITTS, Chief Justice.

This is an appeal from a judgment overruling appellant’s plea of privilege to be sued in Dallas County, Texas, the place of its residence. This action arose out of a suit filed by appellee, Don C. McDaniel, against appellant, Texas fEmployers’ Insurance Association, a corporation, to set aside a written compromise settlement agreement of a compensation claim. The venue issues were tried to a jury on May 23, 1955, and a judgment was rendered upon the jury verdict, together with at least one additional finding made by the trial court, from which judgment appellant perfected its appeal and presents six points of error.

The primary suit is founded- on allegations of fraud. Appellee alleges in effect that he suffered an injury on or about May 20, 1953, while employed by A. J. Betty Construction Engineering Company, from which injury total and permanent incapacity has resulted; that following his injury appellant paid him $25 per week until November 27, 1953, on which date appellant, through its agents, servants and employees, falsely obtained appellee’s signature upon a compromise settlement agreement for the sum of $150 in addition to former payments, which agreement was predicated upon the attending doctor’s future report of appellee’s physical condition and which agreement was thereafter approved by the State Industrial Accident Board.

Appellant filed its plea of privilege and in due course appellee filed his controverting affidavit and made all of his original petition a part thereof. Appellee sought to hold venue in Potter County, Texas, under the provisions of Exception 7 of Article 1995, Vernon’s Ann.Civ.St., pertaining to fraud. Subject to its special exceptions, appellant joined issues with ap-pellee on all material questions raised.

In support of his claims appellee offered in evidence a certified copy of the complete file of the Industrial Accident Board on this case, together with his own oral testimony, after which both parties rested. In his testimony appellee claimed that appellant’s agent, “Mr. Hickman,” made the false representations to him in Potter County, Texas. While such does not seem to be reflected by the pleadings, both ap-pellee’s oral testimony and the record evidence offered by him reveal that appellee executed a compromise settlement receipt in the presence of two witnesses at his own bank on December 11, 1953, the date he cashed his $150 draft given to him by appellant in the compromise settlement.

We shall discuss the points of error in the order that seems most logical to us. Appellant charges error because of the failure of the trial court’s charge to *467 conform to the pleadings and because the jury findings are insufficient to sustain the trial court’s judgment. Appellant preserved the record in support of its charges. The trial court submitted to the jury, over the objections of appellant, only two sets of questions. It first inquired if Mr. Hickman represented to appellee that the instrument signed on November 27, 1953, by appellee did not represent a final settlement of his claims. The jury answered affirmatively to the effect that Hickman did so represent to appellee. In answer to further inquiries made by the trial court in the same set of questions, the jury further found that Hickman’s representations were false but believed and relied upon by appellee who would not have signed the instrument otherwise. In the other set of questions propounded to the jury, the trial court inquired if appellee knew at the time he cashed his $150 draft given to him by appellant that the same had been issued in final settlement of his claim and inquired further if a" person of ordinary prudence, situated as appellee was, would have known such to have been so issued. The jury gave a negative answer to each of the inquiries.

As previously stated, appellee’s allegations of false representations made to him by appellant’s agent were predicated upon the report of appellee’s attending doctor furnished and paid by appellant. In connection with this matter, appellee pleaded in part as follows:

“The plaintiff would further show that on said date of the 27th day of November, 1953, that the agents, servants, and employees of the defendant, having previously directed the plaintiff herein to be in the defendant’s branch office in Amarillo, Potter County, Texas, and at their direction, the plaintiff was in the defendant’s branch office, located in Amarillo, Potter County, Texas, advised the plaintiff that the Association’s doctor, that had been treating the plaintiff, had not yet made his report to them, but were expecting it in a short time. That after making such statement to the plaintiff, the defendant’s agents, servants and employees prepared the compromise settlement agreement hereinbefore set out, in the sum of $150.00, and advised the plaintiff that they would pay him for six weeks in advance, said period to end on the 9th day of January, 1954, but that in order to receive said payment it would be necessary for him to sign the compromise settlement agreement handed him. The agents, servants and employees of the defendant further advised and promised the plaintiff that by that date that they should have the doctor’s report, and that in the event, that the doctor, that is, the Association’s doctor, did, in his report advise the Association that the plaintiff had any permanent disability that at that time they would make him an additional payment upon the basis of the doctor’s report. * * * and that upon the receipt of the doctor’s orders that the Association would make him an additional settlement, * * * that after receiving the doctor’s report from the Association doctor, the Association failed and refused to make any additional payment to the plaintiff herein. * * * the defendant had no intention of taking into consideration the doctor’s report at anytime thereafter.” (Emphasis added.)

It will be observed that according to appellee’s pleadings the question of whether or not appellee should receive any additional payment over and above the $150 depended entirely on the nature of a medical report to be furnished to appellant, by appellee’s attending physician whose name, according to the record, was Dr. Huston Pearson. Appellee so testified upon cross examination as follows:

“Q. I am talking about your conversation with Mr. Hickman. In your conversation with Mr. Hickman did not this matter of whether you should receive more than a $150 turn on the final report that the doctor made? A. Yes, it did.”

*468 Dr. Pearson made such report to appellant on date November 30, 1953, by letter, the body of which is as follows:

“Dear Sir:
“I have been treating Mr. Don Mc-Daniels who was Injured on May 20, 1953 while working for A. J. Betty, Contractor. He received a fracture of the right fibula in the region of the middle of the bone. There was no displacement of fragments and no excessive swelling. He was put in a plaster cast for two weeks and then a walker iron applied and he walked on this leg with only a moderate amount of swelling. The fracture was firmly healed by the eighth week at which time he was allowed to return to work. He was unable to work for he was having a large amount of swelling.

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286 S.W.2d 465, 1956 Tex. App. LEXIS 1991, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/texas-employeesinsurance-association-v-mcdaniel-texapp-1956.