Texas Employers' Ins. Ass'n v. Ferguson

204 S.W.2d 197, 1947 Tex. App. LEXIS 1194
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJune 13, 1947
DocketNo. 14848
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 204 S.W.2d 197 (Texas Employers' Ins. Ass'n v. Ferguson) 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 Employers' Ins. Ass'n v. Ferguson, 204 S.W.2d 197, 1947 Tex. App. LEXIS 1194 (Tex. Ct. App. 1947).

Opinion

HALL, Justice.

This is a workman’s compensation case, tried in the 89th District Court of Wichita County, Texas. .R. V. Ferguson was the employee, Deep Oil Development Company.' was the employer, and Texas Employers’ Insurance Association the carrier.

At a jury trial, the employee recovered judgment for compensation for total, permanent disability. The carrier has appealed.

Appellant seeks reversal under six points of error, each of which complains of im-' proper argument upon the trial, by appel-lee’s counsel. We shall later point out more specifically the offending arguments.

The evidence adduced, relating to the cause, nature and extent of appellee’s disability was highly conflicting.

[198]*198Because of the contentions of the parties in the respects last mentioned, we deem it proper to relate some parts of the testimony. Appellee testified that on June 7, 1945, he was in the employ of Deep Oil Development Company and in the course of his employment was engaged in stacking sacks of salt, weighing one hundred pounds per sack, and while thus engaged, he got a “crean” of some kind that caused a jerk in his back; that he did not inform anyone of his in-jiiry at that time, but kept on working for a day and a half afterward until the job was completed. That a day or so after he received the injury he decided he wanted to take off from work four or five days to be with his son then returning from' the Army; that within a day or two. afterward he began to run a temperature and went to a chiropractor for treatment; that on June 15, he went to Dr. Heymann for examination and treatment; that shortly after Dr. Heymann saw him he purchased a filling station and took possession of it on June 27; that he told the two parties from whom he purchased the filling station that he had hurt his back and needed lighter work. We note by the record that each of the sellers of the filling station testified that they did not remember any such statement being made to them by appellee. Appellee further testified that he went back to work for his employer on June 26 and worked that day, and asked the employer for a ten day vacation; that he took possession of the filling station which he had purchased on the next day, or June 27. He further testified that after he was released by Dr. Heymann, he went to Dr. Bailey Collins in November, 1945, and that Dr. Collins took pictures of him and treated him for about six weeks. He thereafter employed counsel, who sent him to' Dr. M. W. Caskey; that doctor testified that he saw appellee for the first time on April 4, 1946, and testified upon the trial that when he saw appellee he was suffering from arthritis; that the pictures indicated that he had had it for a long period of time; that evidently the strain from lifting the sacks of salt tore some of the arthritic spurs loose in his back and impinged the spinal nerves, and that these things totally disabled appellee from doing manual labor and that his disability was permanent.

Dr. Heymann, who treated appellee on June 15, 1945, eight days after the alleged injury, testified that his N-ray pictures showed an arthritic back, which had developed over a long period of time and which was not attributable to any strain that appellee might have suffered eight days previously; that if appellee did receive a strain, he should have recovered from it in from two to six months; that the X-ray pictures did not show that any of the arthritic spurs or lime deposits had been torn loose or sheared off; that it would be impossible to she.ar these arthritic spurs by lifting one hundred pound sacks of salt; that they might be broken off by a direct blow to the back, in which case appellee would have immediately become incapacitated ; that appellee was not suffering from such a condition as he had described but that he had completely recovered from the strain asserted by him when the witness again examined appellee on April 5, 1946.

Upon cross-examination appellee testified that he was a man past fifty years of age; that he began having prostate trouble in 1931, was operated on in 1934 for that trouble; that it again bothered him in 1940 and that he was again operated upon for the same trouble in 1945; that long prior to the time the prostate trouble appeared he had been going to a chiropractor for treatment for “catches in his hip” and that his left side was-injured while running a tractor sometime in 1926, or 1927; that in 1944 he received an injury by the “popping of his neck” when a wrench slipped while working on a pipe-line but that the injury to his neck did not bother him very long; he further testified that he had his teeth removed about twenty years prior to the time he received the injury for which he instituted this suit.

No attempt is made by us to even refer to all the testimony, but the material conflicts arc apparent. The jury determined by its verdict the controlling issues favorable to appellee’s testimony. There is no contention made here that the testimony, as accepted by the jury, would not sustain the verdict. It is the contention of appellant before this court that several portions of the argument by appellee’s counsel were inflammatory to such an extent that the jury [199]*199was induced to render a verdict otherwise than it would have done but for the objectionable arguments.

Points of error One and Two complain of arguments to the jury made by appellee’s counsel when he stated to the jury in substance, that his client looked like a good man and his wife looked like a good woman and that if they were deliberately lying in order to collect money from the insurance company they were crooks and if they were lying they were committing perjury and should be in the penitentiary. And in his closing argument appel-lee’s counsel said, in effect, that appellant’s counsel in replying to his former argument had said that it is unnecessary for the jury to find that appellee was lying about this matter but that they could just refuse to allow him any compensation. Appellee’s counsel then repeated that his client was either telling the truth about his injury or that he was just plain lying, and that if he was lying it was just plain perjury. There were other parts of his closing argument which emphasized what he had said in his opening argument. The record does not indicate that appellant made any objections to the argument of appellee’s counsel in the matters mentioned. If the argument was improper and objection had been made to it at that time, the trial court would doubtless have sustained such objection and instructed the jury to disregard it. But having made no objection naturally there was no ruling of the court thereon. See Ramirez v. Acker, 134 Tex. 647, 138 S.W.2d 1054, 1056; Red Arrow Freight Lines, Inc., v. Matz, Tex.Civ.App., 182 S.W.2d 725; Alpine Tel. Corporation v. McCall, Tex.Civ. App., 195 S.W.2d 585, writ refused.

Appellee’s argument complained of in point three is as follows: “Now they tell you that I am a wonder, you want to watch me, I am smart, I am smooth. They weren’t complimenting me, they are not dumb enough to do a thing like that. They were telling you in a nice way that I am slick and I am sharp and tricky, and you must watch me, I am going to pull the wool over your eyes.”

The bill of exception does not disclose that any objection was interposed by appellant’s counsel to the above quoted argument.

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Bluebook (online)
204 S.W.2d 197, 1947 Tex. App. LEXIS 1194, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/texas-employers-ins-assn-v-ferguson-texapp-1947.