Texas Employers' Ins. Ass'n v. Rowell

104 S.W.2d 613
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedFebruary 26, 1937
DocketNo. 1627.
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 104 S.W.2d 613 (Texas Employers' Ins. Ass'n v. Rowell) 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. Rowell, 104 S.W.2d 613 (Tex. Ct. App. 1937).

Opinion

GRISSOM, Justice.

This is a workmen’s compensation case. Rowell sued his employer’s insurance carrier alleging that he was totally and permanently incapacitated as a result of a sunstroke or heat exhaustion on August 10, 1934. He contends that on said date shortly before quitting time he suffered a sunstroke 'or heat exhaustion while replacing a belt in the engine house. He was not supposed to work the following day. That he was sick from August 10th until August 25th at which time he returned to work and did the same work as previously until October 12th. When the well was practically completed, Rowell left for a business trip to the Rio Grande valley. About November 24, 1934, while walking about the streets of Eastland, he suffered a stroke of paralysis. . At the time of the trial there was evidence that Rowell was suffering from paralysis, hardening of the arteries, high blood pressure, and heart trouble. It was his contention, which he undertook to establish by medical testimony, that his condition at the time of the trial was connected with and the result of the alleged sunstroke, or heat exhaustion, suffered by him while changing a belt on certain oil well drilling machinery on August 10th.

The case was submitted to a jury on special issues, all of which were answered *615 favorably to the plaintiff. Thereupon the court entered judgment for the plaintiff, appellee here, for total permanent disability.

Special issue No. 6 was as follows: “Do you find from a preponderance of the evidence that the plaintiff’s condition of total incapacity, if any, is permanent?” Defendant’s objection to the submission of said issue was as follows: “* * * for the reason that it does not confine the jury to the question as to whether or not the particular part of the incapacity, if any, of plaintiff which was produced and brought about by sun stroke or injury arising out of his employment, but permits the jury to find on the permanence of plaintiff’s disability in general, even though the plaintiff may have, or may, in the future, recover from those particular ailments which may have produced or brought about the particular injury complained of in plaintiff’s petition.”

We think the issue was not subject to such objection. The jury in answer to a previous question found that plaintiff was totally incapacitated. The question here was whether the incapacity was permanent. The objection pertained to the question of the cause of permanent incapacity which the court could not properly add to the question asked. To have done so would, in effect, have caused the court in one issue to inquire whether the incapacity was permanent, and also whether the sunstroke would continue throughout the period of permanent incapacity as a producing cause thereof. The question as to duration of incapacity and the question as to the cause thereof do not inquire as to a group of facts constituting a single ultimate issue. Lumbermen’s Reciprocal Ass’n v. Wilmoth (Tex.Com.App.) 12 S.W. (2d) 972, 973. In connection with the question generally, also see Texas Emp. Ins. Ass’n v. Horn (Tex.Civ.App.) 75 S.W. (2d) 301; Commercial Standard Ins. Co. v. Noack (Tex.Com.App.) 62 S.W. (2d) 72.

Appellant’s proposition No. 2 is as follows: “It being controverted as to whether or not appellee sustained an injury, and also as to whether or not such injury, if any, was a result of heat exhaustion or sunstroke, it was error for the court to submit special issue No. 1, as follows: ‘Do you find from a preponderance of the evidence that the plaintiff, H. Rowell, on or about the 10th day of August, 1934, sustained an injury as that term is herein defined, as a result 'of a heat exhaustion or sunstroke? Answer Yes or No.’ as against the exception of appellee to the effect that it was duplicitous as submitting both of such issues.”

In Speer’s Law on Special Issues at p. 128, it is said: “It is not always the case that the submittable issue consists of a single simple fact. It may consist of a primary fact as limited or qualified by some other fact consideration, yet on the whole be a single issue. In such case the one real issue can often be best submitted with the limiting or qualifying facts stated in connection with the one real issue to be submitted. * * * A grouping of facts necessary to present one ultimate issue is not a grouping of issues at all.”

The issue as submitted was substantially ⅛ accord with the plaintiff’s pleadings. Stated differently, the issue was, in effect, Did the plaintiff sustain the injury alleged? Stated as it was it avoided the mistake of referring the jury to plaintiff’s pleadings. The primary fact inquired about was the existence of the injury. The finding of the jury of any injury other than that alleged would have been immaterial and its submission might have been subject to the objection that the question did not limit the inquiry to the kind of injury alleged. Hence the propriety, if not the necessity, of limiting and confining the inquiry to the character of injury alleged. It has often been held that, where an issue is composed of several component parts, or where it is necessary to limit, describe, or modify an issue, the rule against duplicity or multifariousness is not violated. The question submitted the issue pleaded.

We have concluded that the issue is not duplicitous. Panhandle & S. F. Ry. Co. v. Brown (Tex.Civ.App.) 74 S.W. (2d) 531, 535; Texas Emp. Ins. Ass’n v. Jones (Tex.Civ.App.) 70 S.W. (2d) 1014; Texas Emp. Ins. Ass’n v. Burnett (Tex.Civ.App.) 72 S. W.(2d) 952; City of Abilene v. Moore (Tex.Civ.App.) 12 S.W. (2d) 604; Fidelity Union Cas. Co. v. Cary (Tex.Civ.App.) 13 S.W.(2d) 993, reversed on other grounds (Tex.Com.App.) 25 S.W. (2d) 302; Wortham et al. v. Bull (Tex.Civ.App.) 19 S.W. (2d) 211; Texas Emp. Ins. Ass’n v. Pugh (Tex.Civ.App.) 57 S.W. (2d) 248; Texas Ind. Ins. Co. v. Holloway (Tex.Civ.App.) 30 S.W. (2d) 921, affirmed without reference to question (Tex.Com.App.) 40 S.W. (2d) 75; Texas Emp. Ins. Ass’n v. Pearson (Tex.Civ.App.) 67 S.W.(2d) 630; Tex *616 as P. C. & O. Co. v. Grabner (Tex.Civ.App.) 10 S.W. (2d) 441; St. Louis, S. F. & T. Ry. Co. v. Wilson (Tex.Com.App.) 279 S.W. 808; Fox v. Dallas Hotel Co., 111 Tex. 461, 240 S.W. 517, 518; 41 Tex.Jur. § 276, p. 1107.

Appellant further contends that special issue No. 1 “assumes that the plaintiff had an attack of heat exhaustion or sun stroke, and is calculated to lead the jury to believe that the court is of the opinion that the plaintiff had suffered such an attack and is a comment upon the weight of the evidence.” Such obj ection was timely made to the submission of said issue.

We do not believe the issue subject to such objection. Its submission was correct under the authorities heretofore cited.

Argument of appellee’s counsel in the closing address to the jury is complained of as follows:

“But, sirs, if you can give us a verdict on the preponderance of the testimony on our issues, we want it, and we are entitled to it. We will not ask you for bread, though you may be willing to give it, but at your hands and at the hands of your-clients, sir, we ask justice, and when we get it, we will have every question answered in the affirmative, except the last two that the court instructs shall be answered otherwise.” (Italics ours.)

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