Vestal v. Texas Employers' Ins.

285 S.W. 1041
CourtTexas Commission of Appeals
DecidedJune 16, 1926
DocketNo. 582-4404
StatusPublished
Cited by55 cases

This text of 285 S.W. 1041 (Vestal v. Texas Employers' Ins.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Texas Commission of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Vestal v. Texas Employers' Ins., 285 S.W. 1041 (Tex. Super. Ct. 1926).

Opinion

SPEER, J.

The writ of error in this case has been gianted to review the judgment of the Court of Civil Appeals for the Pirst district, wherein it reversed the judgment of the district court in favor of plaintiff in error. against defendant in error, involving the construction of article 5246 — 45, subd. 2, of Vernon’s Annotated Civil Statutes, Supplement 1918, part of the Workmen’s Compensation Act. 271 S. W. 225. The question of law presented will be made manifest by a statement of the holding of the two courts.

The trial court found:

“The award of the Industrial Accident Board of the state of Texas made on April 26, 1923, in favor of B. A. Vestal, plaintiff in this suit, requiring the Texas Employers’ Insurance Association, defendant herein, to pay to said Vestal the sum of $15 per week for a period of not in-excess of 401 weeks, and naming the statutory exceptions, is as final an award as the said board is empowered to make under the statute; that the said award was not appealed from by either party thereto within the prescribed time, thereby rendering same unappealable; and that the said award of said board is and was from the date thereof in full force and effect according to the terms and tenor thereof; that without justifiable cause defendant herein wholly defaulted, and failed to abide by the orders of the said board as expressed in said award, in that they failed and refused to pay to plaintiff in error, upon proper demand, the compensation provided for in said award, no payments having been made by said defendant to plaintiff subsequent to March'4, 1923; that, after failure of defendant to perform in accordance with the award, to wit, June 1, 1923, plaintiff, B. A. Vestal, found it necessary to employ counsel to protect [1042]*1042his rights herein, and did employ A. 0. Allen and Thomas R. Cox, attorneys at law, to bring for him on his said claim a suit to mature the same, and collect the full amount thereof, and that said suit was accordingly brought on June 1, 1923; that the evidence showed that, after the date of said award, the defendant paid no money or equivalent thereunder, yet that before the making of said award the defendant had paid as compensation to plaintiff certain payments fom time to time aggregating the sum of $345. It is therefore considered by the court, ai: 1 so ordered, adjudged, and decreed, that plaintiff, B. A. Vestal, do have and recover of and from the defendant, the Texas Employers’ Insurance Association, the sum of $4,845.89, same representing the value of 401 weekly payments of $15 each, computed at 6 per cent., same being the legal rate of interest in Texas, under the established rule of present worth allowing deduction therefrom the amount of $345, representing previous payments of compensation paid by defendant to plaintiff herein, adding to result $118.97, same representing interest computed at 6 per cent., on the said outstanding and unpaid balance of plaintiff’s claim for the period by the filing of this suit and a rendition of this judgment, and adding thereto an amount of $554.38, representing 12 per cent, penalties, plus $500, which the court finds to be a reasonable attorney’s fee for the services performed by said attorney herein, the same making a total of $5,674.24.”

The Court of Civil Appeals reversed this judgment and remanded the cause, with instructions to hear evidence as to the physical condition of the appellee, Vestal, at the time of and subsequent to the former trial, and then to enter judgment in his favor as follows :

“(1) For the aggregate amount of the $15 in-stallmeitts accrued up to the date of the former trial; (2) for a 12 per cent, penalty thereon; (3) for what the court may determine to be a reasonable attorney’s fee for the bringing and prosecuting the suit; (4) for such sum, if any, after taking into consideration his physical condition between the two trials, as it may find shall have accrued during that period; (5) for such weekly payments from and after the date of the judgment then being rendered as it may, based upon his physical condition at that time, find the appellee entitled to, subject, however, to the maximum period prescribed in the Compensation Act and its further provisions relative to the reopening of the cause on the subsequent development of different conditions.”

We think the Court of Civil Appeals erred in reversing the judgment of the district court. The question is ruled by a construe-, tion of pertinent parts Of our Workmen’s Compensation Act.

The scheme of compensation to workmen provided by our statute, like that of the Other acts by most of the states of this Union, is one unknown to the common law, and is purely of statutory origin, conferring rights and proviuing remedies otherwise unknown, and it follows, of course, that the rights of all parties are controlled by the express terms of such statute or some construction thereof. The very existence of our complex organized society depends upon the employment of human agents in those industries which have for their object the production and distribution of -commodities or the supplying of service to others, and it is now too late to debate, or even to doubt, the economical soundness or constitutional sanction of those wholesome laws of modern date known as Workmen’s Compensation Acts. The rigor of the common law, and the ineffectiveness of employers’ liability acts predicated upon negligence, have given way to the wholesome and humane doctrine that the industry itself shall bear the cost of its pro-, duction or service, and that injuries, inca-pacities, unemployment, and death of the workmen, in the course of, or growing out of, their employment, enter as much into the real cost of such things as do the actual labor of the workmen, the machinery employed, or the insensate material consumed. It is economically sound and legally just that those losses which are fairly incidental to the business, as a part of its hazards, should be borne by the industry, regardless of the immediate fault or technical negligence of either the employer or the employee.The statutes being thus remedial and wholesome, the courts everywhere have given to them a broad and liberal construction in order to effectuate their intent and purpose. Lumbermen’s, etc., Ass’n v. Behnken, 112 Tex. 103, 246 S. W. 72, 28 A. L. R. 1402; McClure v. Georgia, etc., Co.. (Tex. Com. App.) 251 S. W. 800; Corpus Juris, Workmen’s Compensation Acts, p. 40, § 34.

Article 5246 — 45, Vernon’s Texas Civil Statutes, 1918 Supplement, provides:

“In all cases where the board shall make a final order, ruling or decision as provided in the foregoing section 5 (article 5246 — 44) hereof, and against the association, and the association shall fail and refuse to obey or comply with the same and shall fail or refuse to bring suit to set the same aside as in said section 5 is provided, then in that event, the claimant in addition to the rights and remedies given him and the board in said section 5 may bring suit in-some court of competent jurisdiction where the injury occurred, upon said order, ruling or decision, and if he secures'a judgment in said court sustaining such order, ruling or decision in whole or in part, he shall also be entitled to recover the further sum of twelve per cent, as damages upon the amount of compensation so recovered in said judgment, together- with a reasonable attorney’s fee for the prosecution and collection of such claim.

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Bluebook (online)
285 S.W. 1041, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/vestal-v-texas-employers-ins-texcommnapp-1926.