Texas Employers' Insurance Ass'n v. Goforth

307 S.W.2d 610, 1957 Tex. App. LEXIS 2187
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedNovember 1, 1957
Docket3338
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 307 S.W.2d 610 (Texas Employers' Insurance Ass'n v. Goforth) 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' Insurance Ass'n v. Goforth, 307 S.W.2d 610, 1957 Tex. App. LEXIS 2187 (Tex. Ct. App. 1957).

Opinion

COLLINGS, Justice.

This is a workmen’s compensation suit by Oscar B. Goforth against Texas Employers’ Insurance Association, the compensation insurance carrier for plaintiff’s employer. Plaintiff alleged that on November 18, 1955, while engaged in the course of his employment with his employer he sustained disabling injuries to his back by reason of which he became totally disabled within the meaning of the Texas Workmen’s Compensation Act. Plaintiff sought to recover the benefits provided by the act. It was found by the jury that plaintiff suffered ten weeks total disability and thereafter 55 percent permanent partial disability. The court granted plaintiff’s motion and rendered judgment against the defendant insurance company for 300 weeks partial incapacity at $25 a week. Texas Employers’ Insurance Association has brought this appeal.

It is contended in appellant’s first and second points that there was no evidence, or in any event, that the evidence was not sufficient to support the finding of the jury to the effect that appellee Oscar Goforth sustained 55 percent permanent partial incapacity. Appellant urges that there can be no partial incapacity because no decrease was shown in appellee’s weekly wage earning capacity after the injury as compared to his weekly wages before the injury. Appellant points out that about six weeks after November 18, 1955, when appellee sustained the injury to his back, he obtained employment as a driller at an increase of 54‡ an hour over what he had been earning at the time of his injury, as a roughneck; that appellee’s wages at the time of his injury were $1.66 per hour and that he began working about six weeks later at $2.20 per hour; that during the period from January through the first part of October, 1956, appellee earned by his labor $2,601.43, or about $300 per month, in spite of a two month shut down during April and May.

Appellant’s contention in these points is not well taken. There is ample evidence to the effect that Goforth, while working in the course of his employment for the Hunter estate on November 18, 1955, sustained serious injury to his back and by reason thereof became permanently disabled from doing hard manual labor. Goforth at the time of his injury was forty-two years of age, was an oil field worker and had been doing work both as a roughneck and as a driller. The evidence indicates that the work of a roughneck is hard manual labor and heavier work than that of a driller; that a driller does not have to do heavy work except while the rig is being made ready for drilling; that appellee was and is able to do part of the work of a driller, but not able to do the more strenuous work of a roughneck; that appellee’s ability to secure employment as a driller is impaired because he is unable to do the hard work which a *613 driller is occasionally required to do, even though his former employers, out of loyalty to him, have so far permitted him to continue to work for them as a driller in spite of his inability to do a part of the work. Under the workmen’s compensation act, compensation is paid for diminution of earning capacity, not for loss of earnings, and the fact that an injured employee works and earns money after his injury is generally not conclusive on the issue of his capacity to obtain and retain employment. As stated by Judge Norvell, in Texas Employers’ Ins. Ass’n v. Taylor, Tex.Civ.App., 276 S.W.2d 901, 903:

“ * * * a recovery for permanent partial disability may be sustained, notwithstanding the fact that the employee may have worked after his injury and for a time received substantially the same wages as were paid to him prior to the injury. The peculiar facts of each case must control the judgment therein * *

See also Texas Employers’ Ins. Ass’n v. Evers, Tex.Civ.App., 242 S.W.2d 906; Commercial Casualty Insurance Co. v. Strawn, Tex.Civ.App., 44 S.W.2d 805 (Writ Ref.) and cases cited therein. The evidence in this case, as above summarized, in our opinion amply supports the finding of the jury that appellee sustained fifty-five percent partial disability as a result of the injury he suffered on November 18, 1955.

Special issue number 14 of the court’s charge concerning the percentage of appellee’s partial incapacity and the answer of the jury thereto were as follows:

“Special Issue No. 14: Find from a preponderance of the evidence the percentage of such partial disability, if any, inquired about in Special Issue No. 10. Answer by giving the percentage in numbers, if any. Answer: 55%”

Appellant’s third, four, fifth and sixth points complain of the action of the court in overruling objections to the submission of special issue number fourteen and in refusing to submit instead appellant’s three series of requested special issues or a total of nine issues inquiring as to- the extent of the reduction, if any, of appellee’s wage earning capacity after the injury as compared to his earnings before the injury. It is urged by appellant that the injury complained of by appellee is a general injury and under the statute covering partial disability the law requires a determination by the jury as to whether or not there has been any reduction in the average weekly wage earning capacity of the plaintiff as compared with his average weekly wage earning capacity thereafter.

Numerous cases are authority for the proposition that a trial court will not be held in error for inquiring of the jury concerning the claimant’s percentage of partial disability as a result of injury rather than to inquire about the extent of the reduction of his wage earning capacity after the injury. Appellant’s points three, four, five and six are overruled. Traders & General Ins. Co. v. Robinson, Tex.Civ.App., 222 S.W.2d 266 (Writ Ref.); Texas Employers’ Ins. Ass’n v. Spivey, Tex.Civ.App., 231 S.W.2d 760 (Ref. NRE); American General Ins. Co. v. Bailey, Tex.Civ.App., 287 S.W.2d 290 (Ref. NRE); Consolidated Casualty Insurance Company v. Newman, Tex.Civ.App., 300 S.W.2d 160 (Ref. NRE).

In appellant’s seventh and eighth points it is urged that there was no evidence to support the finding that Billy Joe Lewis worked substantially the whole of the year preceding November 18, 1955, in the same, or neighboring place, to Stonewall County, Texas, and that the court erred in overruling appellant’s motion to disregard such finding. The evidence showed that Billy Joe Lewis worked as much as 300 days as a roughneck in the State of Texas during the year immediately preceding appellee’s injury; that all of such work, except thirty-two days, was done in Stephens, Callahan and Stonewall Counties. Appellant does not contend that these counties are not neighboring places. The evidence further shows, however, that thirty-two days of such work *614

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Bluebook (online)
307 S.W.2d 610, 1957 Tex. App. LEXIS 2187, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/texas-employers-insurance-assn-v-goforth-texapp-1957.