Travelers Insurance Co. v. Booker

368 S.W.2d 54
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedApril 4, 1963
DocketNo. 6535
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 368 S.W.2d 54 (Travelers Insurance Co. v. Booker) 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 Insurance Co. v. Booker, 368 S.W.2d 54 (Tex. Ct. App. 1963).

Opinion

HIGHTOWER, Chief Justice.

This is a Workmen’s Compensation case in which appellee recovered judgment for total and permanent incapacity.

The petition upon which appellee went to trial sought recovery upon the theory of heat stroke and other grounds collectively and alternatively.

The substance of the pertinent jury findings is that appellee received an accidental injury to his body while in the course of his employment, which injury resulted in total and permanent incapacity; that ap-pellee sustained total and permanent loss of the use of his right eye as a natural result of said injury; that the incapacity of the appellee is not limited to the right eye. Additionally, after having given the usual definition of accidental injury, the court gave the instruction that it does not include an injury caused by the act of God unless the employee is at the time engaged in the performance of duties that subject him to a greater hazard from the act of God responsible for the injury than ordinarily applies to the general public.

By its first four points, appellant contends that the judgment for total and permanent incapacity is without support in the verdict by reason of the fact that appellee had based his entire claim on a heat stroke and a series of events set in motion by a heat stroke, and it, therefore, became incumbent upon him to prove and to obtain a specific finding by the jury that he was exposed to a greater hazard from the heat than that to which the public is generally exposed, and that, as a result, he sustained a heat stroke. Observe that there were no such jury findings.

On the other hand, appellee contends that the judgment should be affirmed on the basis of such cases as Garcia v. Texas Indemnity Ins. Co., 146 Tex. 413, 209 S.W. 2d 333; General Ins. Corp. v. Wickersham, 235 S.W.2d 215 (Civ.App.); American General Ins. Co. v. Barrett, 300 S.W.2d 358 (Civ.App.). These were largely “fall” cases wherein the claimants received injuries as a result of falling to the ground, although the cause of the fall was not occasioned by reason of the nature of the work, but was solely occasioned by a heart attack, a blackout spell or some pre-exist-ing idiopathic condition.

The law is well established that where a compensation claimant rests his [57]*57recovery upon the effects of an alleged heat stroke, he has the burden of submitting and securing a jury finding to the effect that at the time of injury therefrom he was engaged in the performance of duties which subjected him to a greater hazard than ordinarily applies to the general public. Traders & General Ins. Co. v. Ross, Tex. Civ.App., 263 S.W.2d 673.

If appellant be correct, which we do not concede, that appellee tried his case solely on the basis of incapacity resulting by reason of injury from heat stroke we must nevertheless, inasmuch as we believe there is sufficient evidence in the record in this connection, sustain the judgment of the 'trial court. This by reason of the fact that appellant only urged these contentions in his motion for new trial in the court below. It made no objections there, prior to the submission of the court’s charge to the jury, that the charge did not contain the omitted issues here complained of. The jury, having answered the primary issues of accidental injury in the course of employment favorably to appellee, we hold that by its failure to timely object to the trial court’s failure to include the omitted issues in its charge jury findings on the same were waived. Rule 279, Texas Rules of Civil Procedure; Ormsby v. Ratcliffe, 117 Tex. 242, 1 S.W.2d 1084; Wichita Falls & Oklahoma R. R. Co. v. Pepper, 134 Tex. 360, 135 S.W.2d 79. These omitted issues concerning heat stroke and extra hazardous conditions were not the “very gist and basis of the right to recover”, as stated in Colbert v. Dallas Joint Stock Land Bank, 129 Tex. 235, 102 S.W. 2d 1031. They were only issues which were incidental to and component parts of the jury findings on injury in the course of employment and are, therefore, deemed to have been found in support of the judgment by the trial court. Rule 279, supra.

In order that we not unduly extend this opinion, we shall only briefly refer to the substance of some of the evidence in the record which we hold support the issues of heat exhaustion and extra hazardous conditions which are deemed to have been found in support of the judgment, to-wit:

Appellant was seventy-four years of age on the day of the accident. He had gone to work that morning at 7 a. m. and had fallen out, or fainted, at 4:30 p. m., at which time he was taken home and given medical attention. His duties required him to keep ahead of a road grader on the highway picking up sticks and other trash. He stated that the stuff was so heavy and they worked him and a young boy so hard that they couldn’t keep ahead of the grader, but that they still “laid” to it until 3 o’clock.
It appears from appellant’s testimony that the young boy who was engaged in the work with him “burnt” out about 3 o’clock and had to quit. He stated that in doing this work, he had walked in the sun 15½ miles that day. Although he estimated that the temperature was 75° or 80° that day, he emphasized that he was very hot. By reason of his “falling out” he injured his right eye and that at the time of trial his head had ached, as well as his back, since his injury. That he had falling out spells since his injury. That he is shortwinded, couldn’t do any more work and that his condition is getting worse. That he had none of these complaints before his injury. His treating physician corroborated, without objection, appellant’s testimony regarding his injury and condition from his case history notes and gave his opinion that as a result of said injury appellant was permanently and totally disabled. The evidence further revealed through deposition testimony of another doctor that an accurate description of nature and extent of appellant’s injury was heat exhaustion and that he hurt his right eye when he fell. We quote this additional testimony:
“Q. Doctor, as far as any medical terms, what’s wrong with him? [58]*58Can you tell us what that might he? What can explain this?
“A. I think there’s a series of events here. One is, this man got too hot, and I think no doubt put the blood pressure awful high, and he had what is called a mild heart attack, and doctors wouldn’t call it that, but basically that is what it amounts to, that is one thing. And, then the other thing is when he fell he possibly suffered a series of small hemorrhages or small strokes. These are the type of injuries that give paralysis to the arm or leg, that causes small minute imagies in the brain, and produces what is commonly referred to as a assompconcussion, is another name for it, but the damage is done by small hemorrhages to the brain cells.”

On the basis of the foregoing testimony, we overrule appellant’s contentions regarding the sufficiency of the evidence.

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Bluebook (online)
368 S.W.2d 54, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/travelers-insurance-co-v-booker-texapp-1963.