Texas Employers' Insurance Ass'n v. Vineyard

296 S.W.2d 588, 1956 Tex. App. LEXIS 2387
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedNovember 15, 1956
DocketNo. 3396
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 296 S.W.2d 588 (Texas Employers' Insurance Ass'n v. Vineyard) 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. Vineyard, 296 S.W.2d 588, 1956 Tex. App. LEXIS 2387 (Tex. Ct. App. 1956).

Opinion

TIREY, Justice.

1 This is a suit to set aside a compromise settlement agreement in a compensation case. Appellee grounded his cause of action on fraud practiced upon him in obtaining his signature to the agreement. This is the second appeal. See Vineyard v. Texas Employers Ins. Assn, Tex.Civ.App., 263 S.W.2d 675, 680.

At the conclusion of the testimony the court overruled appellant’s motion for instructed verdict and the jury found substantially: (1 to 6 inch) that appellant’s claim agent showed the written report of Dr. Brown to appellee prior to his signing the settlement agreement, and he believed such report when he signed the settlement agreement, and appellee would not have en[589]*589tered into the settlement agreement had the written report not been shown to him by-appellant’s agent, and that the opinions expressed by Dr. Brown in the written report were false and erroneous, and that in showing the written report of Dr. Brown to plaintiff appellant’s agent was acting to procure a compromise settlement agreement; that before signing the settlement agreement appellee was advised by the claim agent that Dr. Brown said that appellee would be well in two or three weeks, and that he believed the oral statement of Dr. Brown as related to him by the agent when he signed the settlement agreement, and that appellee would not have entered into the agreement had the opinion of Dr. Brown, as related by the agent, not been made; (6 and 7) that the opinion expressed by Dr. Brown in the oral report, as related by the agent to appellee, was false and erroneous, and that the agent in relating Dr. Brown’s oral statement to appel-lee was acting to procure a settlement agreement; (8) appellee did not sustain total incapacity to labor; (11) that appellee did sustain partial incapacity to labor; (12) that such partial incapacity to labor was permanent; (14) that the degree of extent of such partial incapacity to labor was 50%'; (15) that $41.20 would be just and fair to all parties as the average weekly wage of appellee; (16) that the extent of the injury ■of appellee on the occasion in question was uncertain, indefinite and incapable of being satisfactorily established; (17) that the injuries of appellee on August 10, 1949, were not healed, cured and no longer existing within a period of approximately three weeks from the date of the alleged injury; (18) that appellee’s disability was not solely the result of his pre-existing congenital and developmental deformity (spondylolisthe-sis) including from ½" to 1" displacement of the fifth lumbar vertebra on the sacrum in his bade; (19) that appellee’s disability was not solely the result of his preceding .activities during the 1949 football practice arid playing period, together with his pre-existing congenital and developmental deformity; (20) that the claim agent correctly repeated to plaintiff the oral statement of Dr. Brown, which statement Dr. Brown had on August 11, 1949 orally expressed to appellee regarding his condition and the length of his disability.

The court overruled appellant’s motion for judgment non obstante veredicto and granted appellee’s motion to disregard certain findings of the jury, and in the judgment we find this recital: “ * * * being of the opinion that there was no evidence or insufficient evidence to support the jury’s answer to Special Issue No. 16, and that Special Issues Nos. 16 and 20 were not ultimate issues and were immaterial, said motion is in all things granted and sustained and the answers by the jury to Special Issues Nos. 16 and 20 are hereby disregarded, and the court being further of the opinion that, based on the answers of the jury to the remaining special issues, plaintiff ought to recover judgment against defendant, * * and decreed that such compromise settlement be set aside, and that the sum of $75 paid by appellant to the appellee under the terms of such settlement be credited to any amount of compensation hereafter awarded to appellee against appellant arising out of the accident in question. Appellant duly excepted to the order and gave notice of appeal.

The judgment is assailed on what appellant has designated as 13 Points. Points 1 to 6 inclusive are substantially to the effect that (1 and 2) the court erred in refusing to render judgment for appellant notwithstanding the verdict because there was no evidence that Dr. Brown was the agent of appellant and that the evidence was undisputed that defendant’s claim agent correctly repeated to appellee the statement made by Dr. Brown, and that there was no evidence that Dr. Brown was the agent of appellant; (3 and 4) in overruling the exceptions to ' appellee’s petition and the objections to the court’s charge to the effect that there was no pleading that Dr. Brown was the agent of appellant, and in [590]*590failing to .submit to the jury an issue inquiring whether or not Dr. Brown was the agent of appellant and in rendering judgment cancelling the compromise settlement agreement in the absence of a finding that Dr. Brown was appellant’s agent; (5) in overruling appellant’s objection to the special issue submitted to the jury because they assumed that Dr. Brown was the agent of appellant; (6) because the court failed to submit any issue based upon the lack of such issue embracing thé theory of ratification or adoption of Dr. Brown’s statement by appellant.

Appellee in reply says substantially that the previous decision of the Dallas Court heretofore cited is decisive and binding on this court, and further says that the only substantial difference in the case as developed in the second trial and the record on the first trial is that in the first trial it was assumed that prior to Vineyard’s employment he received a previous pre-employment physical examination by Dr. Brown, and that this Dr. Brown was the same one whose report was in question in this suit. On the trial before us it is shown that Dr. Brown did not give the appellee the pre-employment examination and that such pre-employment physical examination was given by some other doctor associated with Dr. Brown in the same clinic. It is without dispute that when appellant claimed he was injured he was advised by the superintendent of the Mill to go to the Medical and Surgical Clinic and that the nurse in the office inquired of him what he was there for and asked him specifically if he was there for an injury or an examination to go to work and that he told her he was there for an injury and she directed him to Dr. Brown. We have carefully read the opinion by the Dallas Court of Civil Appeals and we have obtained from the Clerk of the Supreme Court a filed copy of appellant’s petition for writ of error in that court and after reviewing it we are in accord with appellee’s views. The opinion of the Dallas Court here cited is comprehensive; it is clear, and we think the opinion is in accord with'the well settled authorities of our state. In'that opinion we find: “After reviewing the authorities we are of the opinion that the doctor [referring to Dr. Brown] was not the agent of Vineyard, but was the agent of the employer, and when the agent of the insurance company used the doctor’s statement, it was charged with the truthfulness of such statement in that it was a representation to Vineyard as to his condition.” That was the controlling point in the first case and we think it is still the controlling point in this case, and the Supreme Court has given its approval of the judgment rendered by the Court of Civil Appeals by holding that there was no reversible error, and we think we are bound thereby. See also Graves v. Hartford Accident & Indemnity Co., 138 Tex. 589,

Related

TEXAS EMPLOYERS'INSURANCE ASSOCIATION v. Vineyard
340 S.W.2d 106 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1960)
Texas Employers' Insurance Ass'n v. Vineyard
316 S.W.2d 156 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1958)

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296 S.W.2d 588, 1956 Tex. App. LEXIS 2387, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/texas-employers-insurance-assn-v-vineyard-texapp-1956.