Traders & General Ins. Co. v. Gibbs

229 S.W.2d 410, 1950 Tex. App. LEXIS 2046
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedApril 7, 1950
Docket15130
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 229 S.W.2d 410 (Traders & General Ins. Co. v. Gibbs) 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
Traders & General Ins. Co. v. Gibbs, 229 S.W.2d 410, 1950 Tex. App. LEXIS 2046 (Tex. Ct. App. 1950).

Opinion

HALL, Justice.

This compensation case was appealed by appellant Traders & General Insurance Company from a judgment rendered against it, by the district court of Montague County, for total and permanent disabilities awarded to appellee J. Z. Gibbs.

Appellee, as plaintiff, alleged and testified that during the month of October, 1948, while working on a derrick floor for his employer, Bass and Dillard, drilling' contractors, in Montague County, Texas, an 850 pound joint of metal pipe fell and struck him on the head, fracturing his skull, that resulted in a head injury and caused stomach ulcers to develop, which required surgical operation. He also alleged that by such injuries he became total-. ly and permanently disabled.

Appellant answered that it paid appellee $275 which was all he was entitled to, and for other defenses it alleged that plaintiff sustained an accidental specific injury, resulting in a total loss of sight in his left eye in 1923 and prior to the injury in question .plaintiff sustained other injuries and diseases, including syphilis, which caused ■his disabilities.

Judgment of the trial court in favor of appellee is supported by the jury’s answers to special issues submitted.

Appellant presents nineteen points of error, the first one reading as follows:

“Plaintiff having lost the sight in his left eye in a previous accident, which injury was a specific injury entitling him to definite sum of .compensation, and which injury was a case of permanent partial disability, then plaintiff could not in law sustain total and permanent disability for a second accident.”

We interpret appellant’s contention in support of this point to be that when one has suffered a specific injury and has received compensation therefor, then by a second accident disconnected with the first that said person cannot in law suffer total and permanent disability; that the specific injury left appellee in a permanent- status of partial disability by operation of law, therefore a later disconnected injury could do no more than partially disable appellee. This argument is based upon the theory that total and partial incapacity cannot concur; neither can permanent and temporary incapacity concur. Appellant cites for its authority the following: Texas Employers’ Ins. Ass’n v. Crosby, Tex.Civ.App., 123 S.W.2d 743; Maryland Casualty Co. v. Gunter, Tex.Civ.App., 167 S.W.2d 545; Hartford Accident & Indemnity Co. v. Leigh, Tex.Civ.App., 57 S.W.2d 605; Traders & General Insurance Co. v. Watson, Tex.Civ.App., 131 S.W.2d 1103, error dismissed; R.C.S., art. 8306, secs. 12 and 12c, Vernon’s Ann.Civ.St. art. 8306, §§ 12, 12c; Lumbermen’s Reciprocal Association v. Gilmore, Tex.Civ.App., 258 S.W. 268.

Appellant admits it is the law that one may suffer a total disability by one injury and later may suffer a total disability by a second injury, but argues that such a legal result should not follow from a prior loss of a specific injury which by operation of law results in a permanent partial disability. In other words, it contends the specific injury having once been sustained, the employee can never recover from same, as, for instance, the loss of the sight of an eye. In such a case a party will never again be whole, thus it is impossible for him again to become totally and permanently disabled by a second disconnected injury.

*413 Appellee submits testimony to the effect that by losing the sight of his left eye it did not in any way impair his ability to work. One witness, E. R. Phegley, testified he had worked with appellee for-some six or seven years, that he did not know Gibbs had only one „eye. Floyd Walker, another driller, testified substantially to the same state of facts.

We do not find a rule in the Gilmore case, supra, applicable here. In that case a man who was blind in one eye subsequently lost sight in the other eye through accidental injury. The court held that he was limited to recovery for loss of the specific member.

In construing section 12c, art. ,8306, R.C.S., Vernon’s Ann.Civ.St. art. 8306, § 12c, the court in the Leigh case, supra, announced the following rule: “Where the combined effect of the previous injury and the subsequent injury is to increase the incapacity of the employee beyond that which would have resulted from the subsequent injury alone, the statute would operate. But where, as in this case, the condition of incapacity following the subsequent injury is the same as it would have been had there been no previous injury, the statute has no application.” [57 S.W.2d 607]

The trial court properly submitted to the jury in the instant case issues inquiring as to whether a part of appellee’s permanent' disability resulted from the eye injury in 1923, and if so, what percentage of his present disability resulted from said prior injury, to which the jury answered none. We find the jury’s answer to these issues supported by the evidence. - Appellant made no obj ection to the submission of same.

We do not find appellant’s theory as set out in its point one is correct in the' instant case where trier of the facts found appellee received general injuries which resulted in his total and permanent disability. See Gunter case, supra.

In the case of Texas Employers Insurance Association v. Pierson, Tex.Civ.App., 135 S.W.2d 550, 553, the employee received an injury to his eye during one month and later received a general injury to his body during the next succeeding month. The court held that he was entitled to recover compensation for both injuries even though he was suing for them in the same case and that section 12c did not apply. The court stated: “It will be noted also that one of the injuries, -that to his eye, was specific in its nature, and the other, that to his chest, was general in its nature. The question here presented, therefore, is whether or not it is permissible under our practice to submit two injurie?, one specific and the other general, as a unit in a, joint- incapacity and permit a single recovery thereon. * * * Under the provisions of the statute and the holdings of our courts, the injured employee is entitled to- recover for the loss of the sight of his eye regardless of whether or not such loss contributes to his incapacity to perform labor. * * * The first injury did not totally incapacitate appellee to perform labor. The record shows he continued to labor until several days after the second injury! He was, therefore, still an employee of the smelting company, and covered by the policy of compensation insurance issued by appellant the same as he would have been if he had' not received the injury to his eye.” The case was reversed because of the trial court’s having erroneously submitted the two injuries jointly, but the facts are somewhat analogous to the case at bar. .

We overrule appellant’s point one.

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229 S.W.2d 410, 1950 Tex. App. LEXIS 2046, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/traders-general-ins-co-v-gibbs-texapp-1950.