Travelers Ins. Co. v. Calcote

205 S.W.2d 56, 1947 Tex. App. LEXIS 767
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedSeptember 26, 1947
DocketNo. 14863
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 205 S.W.2d 56 (Travelers Ins. Co. v. Calcote) 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
Travelers Ins. Co. v. Calcote, 205 S.W.2d 56, 1947 Tex. App. LEXIS 767 (Tex. Ct. App. 1947).

Opinion

HALL, Justice.

This suit was originally filed in the 30th District Court of Wichita County, Texas, by the Travelers Insurance Company to set aside an award of the Industrial Accident Board in favor of Claude Roy Calcóte.

At the termination of the jury trial, the court entered a judgment, based upon the jury findings, in favor of Calcóte, for the total and permanent loss of his right foot. The company perfects this appeal, assigning 16 points of error. We will confine our discussion of these points in the same group form as briefed by appellant and discussed by appellee.

The first group covers points 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 11 and 12, which pertain to the subject of whether the trial court properly submitted issues to the jury to determine the proper compensation rate or to determine the average weekly wage or the average daily wage that should have been the basis of Calcote’s recovery. It is the contention of appellant that appellee was not entitled to have the question of his weekly wage submitted under the compensation law, sub-section 2 of section 1, of art. 8309, Vernon’s Ann.Civ.St. for 'the reason of the failure on his part to have first.shown that he was not entitled to have his weekly wage computed under sub-section 1, of the same section. The facts show that appellee was injured on his second day’s employment with General Mills, that he was working as a laborer for the sum of 55^ per hour, and had not worked sufficient time to qualify himself to receive the basic wage of common laborers. The facts further show that appellee, prior to the time he went to work at General Mills, had worked on his father’s farm as a common laborer, that he had practically no education, was not skilled, and that most of his labor was done on his father’s farm, except for two weeks wherein he worked in a cafeteria during the war. Appellant’s contention is that appellee proved by his own testimony that he had labored at the same kind of work he was engaged in, at the time of his injury, substantially for the whole of the year immediately preceding his injury, even though' he had worked on this particular job for less than two days. The facts further relate that he was injured while pushing a hand truck loaded with flour, the same turning over on his ankle and crushing it. The facts further show that the farm on which appellee worked prior to the time he worked for General Mills was located some 120 miles from the scene of the accident. The argument of appellant is to the effect that all common labor should come under the same schedule, regardless of what type or character it may be or where it may have been performed. We cannot find, nor are we referred to any authorities supporting this contention. Farm labor does not even come under the Act. No doubt, it is a substantially different class and type of labor than that of working in a mill, and the wage rate is not shown to be the same.

This group of points cover the general complaint of appellant that the case should not have been submitted under sub-section 2 of art. 8309, Vernon’s Ann.Civ.St., because there was no evidence of the average wage or salary of an employee of the same class working substantially the whole of an immediately preceding year in the same or similar employment and in the same or neighboring place. We also disagree with appellant on this point. The testimony shows that one E. L. Ward, who was working as a sweeper in the mill, worked for more than 340 days, being the year immediately preceding the injury, for which he was paid the sum of $2,029.80, which includes $40.80 for two weeks paid vacation. Appellant’s contention is that since Ward worked more than a year, appellee was not entitled to have his wage computed under sub-section 1, 2, or 3, of section 1, art. 8309, supra, but does contend that Ward’s status, since he worked more than a year, should be calculated by adding all of his wages together [59]*59and dividing by 52, thus the testimony pertaining to Ward’s salary comes under a different status than that of a person who had been employed only substantially the whole of the year, and since appellee failed to show that he could not figure his wage under sub-section 1, therefore, he is not entitled to have his wage figured under 2 or 3, or any other provision of the compensation law, hence, he could recover no more than the minimum of $7 per week.

One Charles Aston testified that he was office manager and accountant for General Mills located in Wichita Falls, Texas, where appellee was working at the time he was injured, and that he knew the rate of pay that the plant was paying for common labor at the time of the injury and that the base pay was from 55$ to 60‡ per hour and that the standard work-week was 40 hours, with time and one half for overtime, and double time on the seventh consecutive day. That during the year from March, 1944, to March, 1945, General Mills had men doing this type of work who worked as much as 300 days out of the year, and that their average weekly wage was $31.20, but that those who worked the seventh consecutive days had an average weekly wage of $40.80. The jury in this case found the average weekly wage to be $33.60, which is ample amount to support the judgment. The facts in the case of Associated Indemnity Corporation v. McGrew, 138 Tex. 583, 160 S.W. 2d 912, show that there was a total of 343 days worked, and that it was proper to take 300 times such average daily wage and divide by 52 to secure the average weekly wage. Therefore, the mere fact that another employee worked more than 300 days would not prevent such wages from being used to calculate the injured employee’s wages under sub-section 2 of the Statute, especially where it is shown that the amount received on a 300 day basis is still more than the jury found the wage rate of the injured party to be. The contentions as set out in appellant’s above points are therefore overruled.

Returning to appellant’s points Nos. 6 and 7, wherein it complains of the trial court’s definition of “total loss of the use of the foot”, and No. 7, “the error of the trial court in giving in charge the jury its definition of ‘partial loss of the use of the foot.’ ”

The definitions in the charge are substantially as follows:

I. You are instructed that the phrase “total loss of the use of his foot” does not imply an absolute disability to perform any kind of labor, but such incapacity of the foot that it disqualifies a person from performing the usual tasks of a workman in such a way as to enable him to procure and retain employment, requiring the use of said foot.

J. You are instructed that the term “partial loss of the use of the foot” as used in this charge is meant the extent that the injury to the foot, if any, in fact destroys or impairs the ability of the foot to be as efficient or competent for performing the usual tasks of a workman after the injury as it was before; any degree of loss of the use of the foot less than total.

Appellant’s contention is that the first definition does not limit Calcote’s recovery for the total loss of the use of his foot to the total loss of the physical function of said foot, but provides that he can recover if the incapacity to the foot disqualifies appellee from performing the usual tasks of a workman in such a way as to enable him to procure and retain employment requiring the use of the foot. Appellant also complains of the definition of the partial loss of the use of the foot in somewhat a similar way.

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Bluebook (online)
205 S.W.2d 56, 1947 Tex. App. LEXIS 767, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/travelers-ins-co-v-calcote-texapp-1947.