Texas Indemnity Ins. Co. v. Bridges

52 S.W.2d 1075, 1932 Tex. App. LEXIS 805
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJune 17, 1932
DocketNo. 984.
StatusPublished
Cited by39 cases

This text of 52 S.W.2d 1075 (Texas Indemnity Ins. Co. v. Bridges) 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 Indemnity Ins. Co. v. Bridges, 52 S.W.2d 1075, 1932 Tex. App. LEXIS 805 (Tex. Ct. App. 1932).

Opinion

LESLIE, J.

B. T. Bridges, plaintiff in the trial court, appellée here, claiming compensation under the Workmen’s Compensation Act of Texas (Rev. St, Y925, art. 8306 et seq., as amended), filed this suit against Texas Indemnity Insurance Company, appellant here, as insurer of Phillips Petroleum Company, ap-pellee’s employer. The allegations of the petition are those usual in such cases, seeking compensation for actual permanent total incapacity. At least two such grounds are set up.

The defendant answered by general and special exceptions, general denial, pleaded total recovery, and joined appellee in seeking to set aside the award of the Industrial Accident Board. The case was tried before the court and jury. On jurors’ answers to special issues, the board’s award was set aside and judgment rendered against defendant for compensation accrued, plus the lump sum value for 363 weeks compensation *1076 at the rate of $10.38 per week, etc. ■ The insurance company appeals. Further statements from the record will he made as the opinion proceeds.

Except in the particulars challenged and hereafter to be noticed, the appellant concedes that the appellee, Bridges, received an injury while an employee of Phillips Petroleum Company; that it was sustained in the course of employment, and resulted in permanent total disability.

This appeal is predicated upon seven propositions of law, supported by proper assignments. Propositions 3 and 4 have been abandoned. The others will be disposed of seriatim.

Propositions 1 and 2 are similar in nature and will be considered together. The first is: “When in the administration of the law in any given controversy, the scope of the trial court’s inquiry is either limited or enlarged by a written instrument and especially where litigant’s rights are predicated thereon, a plaintiff referring to such instrument in his petition should be required when said petition is properly challenged by appropriate exception, to attach to his petition any such instrument, and the court in this case should, therefore, have sustained the special exception of the defendant challenging the omission of the plaintiff in his first amended original- petition to set forth in haec verba, or attach as a copy thereto, the plaintiff’s claim for compensation as made and filed before the Industrial Accident Board.”

The second proposition is: “Where the jurisdiction of a court in the administration of the law is a special jurisdiction, and this special jurisdiction does not attach with respect to administering the rights of involved litigants until a precedent act of another governmental agency has been performed in the manner required by law, and the only evidence extant of the precedent act of said governmental agency is written evidence, the plaintiff in pleading his case, when his petition is appropriately challenged by special exception, must be required by the court to set forth in his petition in haec verba or attach as a copy thereof, the written evidence of the precedent act, and the plaintiff in this case having failed to plead as above indicated with respect to the final award of the Industrial Accident Board, he should have been required when such omission was properly challenged to set forth in his petition in haec verba or attach as an exhibit thereto a copy of the final award of the Industrial Accident Board.”

The plaintiff’s first amended original petition contained an allegation that “within six months after said date plaintiff made written claim to the defendant and to the Industrial Accident Board of the State of Texas for compensation for said permanent total incapacity to labor.”

In advancing said propositions the appellant concedes that the appellee may, under appropriate conditions, file an amended claim before the board, and it does not contend that -the plaintiff cannot, in the district court, go into a more detailed inquiry with reference to his general injuries than the manner in which they were described in his claim for compensation before the board. In considering these points it must be borne in mind that the pleadings and proceedings before the board are simple and summary. American Employers’ Ins. Co. v. Scott (Tex. Civ. App.) 83 S.W.(2d) 845; Texas Employers’ Ins. Ass’n v. Haney (Tex. Civ. App.) 28 S.W.(2d) 850; Millers’ Indemnity Underwriters v. Hughes (Tex. Civ. App.) 256 S. W. 334; Fidelity Union Casualty Co. v. Cary (Tex. Com. App.) 25 S.W.(2d) 302; Texas Employers’ Ins. Ass’n v. Jimenez (Tex. Civ. App.) 267 S. W. 752.

On appeal the trial in the district court is de novo. Were it not necessary that the special jurisdiction of the trial court be shown as a condition precedent to such trial, there would be no purpose in alleging the special jurisdictional facts, but these requirements do not contemplate that a party plead his testimony in this character of case any more than in other classes of litigation. It is elementary that testimony need not be pleaded, and to require the plaintiff in this case to set forth in hcec verba or by copy the claim to the board and the award of the board, would be requiring such thing to be done. They appear in the transcript of the proceedings before ,the board, which is necessarily filed with the record in the trial court, but they do not go before the court or jury as evidence upon the issues being tried, other than to show the special jurisdiction of the court.

In seeking to have the court sustain its said special exceptions it is contended: “This appellant had the right by special exception to ask this court to determine the scope of his inquiry with respect to the claim for compensation before the trial of the case started.” This contention is not valid because it assumes that the scope of inquiry is limited to the claim for compensation made before the Industrial Accident Board. That the assumption is incorrect may be seen from the following authorities: Standard Accident Ins. Co. v. Williams (Tex. Com. App.) 14 S.W.(2d) 1015; Texas Employers’ Ins. Ass’n v. Knouff (Tex. Civ. App.) 271 S. W. 633; Texas Indemnity Ins. Co. v. White (Tex. Civ. App.) 37 S.W.(2d) 277; Employers’ Casualty Co. v. Scheffler (Tex. Civ. App.) 20 S.W. (2d) 833; Texas Employers’ Ins. Ass’n v. Adcock (Tex. Civ. App.) 27 S.W. (2d) 363; Ætna Life Ins. Co. v. Bulgier (Tex. *1077 Civ. App.) 19 S.W.(2d) 821; Texas Employers’ Ins. Co. v. Varner (Tex. Civ. App.) 20 S.W.(2d) 334.

Eurtlier, it is contended by -the appellant that the allegation that the board made a “final award” is but the pleader’s conclusion, hence the necessity of setting out the instrument or order in hajc verba. We have examined the pleadings and think they clearly and sufficiently allege the pleader’s jurisdictional facts as such, and there was no necessity that the evidence of these facts be set out hsec verba in the pleadings.

In any event the defendant did not except on the ground that the allegations as to the award having been made constituted a conclusion. ' In the appellant’s brief we find this statement: “With respect to the case at bar, counsel willingly concedes that ■the award, after it was introduced in evidence, was in fact a final award.” No contention is made that the appellant was in any wise surprised or harmed by the introduction in evidence before the court of such claim and the court’s final ruling and decision thereon.

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