Viking Construction Company v. Beaird

337 S.W.2d 699
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJanuary 1, 1960
Docket7183
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 337 S.W.2d 699 (Viking Construction Company v. Beaird) 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
Viking Construction Company v. Beaird, 337 S.W.2d 699 (Tex. Ct. App. 1960).

Opinion

*701 DAVIS, Justice.

Plaintiff-appellee, Joe Beaird, hereinafter referred to as Beaird, sued defendants-appellants, Viking Construction Company, hereinafter referred to as Viking, and Alex Mayfield hereinafter referred to as May-field, an employee of Viking, for personal injuries sustained on August 9, 1955, when an automobile in which Beaird was riding along U. S. Highway 59 in Nacogdoches County was in a collision with a truck belonging to Viking and being operated by Mayfield.

Liberty Mutual Insurance Company, as intervenor, intervened in the suit seeking to recover from Viking and Mayfield the amount of Workmen’s Compensation it had paid to appellee Beaird.

The case came on for trial before a jury in the District Court of Nacogdoches County on September 16, 1958. The jury found that the accident was caused by the negligence of appellant Mayfield, an employee of appellant Viking, and without any negligence on the part of appellee Beaird. The jury found that Beaird had suffered damages for the loss of his earning capacity, pain and suffering, and future medical expenses in the sum of $171,200. It was stipulated in the trial that Beaird had suffered damages in the sum of $2,948.95 for past medical expenses, and the sum of $1,450 for damages to his automobile. The jury found such damages to exist. Beaird was 46 years and 9 months old at the time of the accident, with a life expectancy of 23.08 years.

According to the evidence Mayfield was operating the truck of Viking on the left hand side of the highway at the time of the collision. He struck Beaird’s car and caused it to spin around and stop on Mayfield’s right hand side of the highway. The truck went rolling on up the highway and across the ditch and stopped upon the bank. In the collision, Beaird suffered many injuries. He suffered an injury to his head, a broken collar bone, seven fractured ribs, an injury to the 5th lumbar vertebra, multiple fractures of pelvis, dislocation of both hips with a piece of ball and piece of rim of the acetabulum of the right hip chipped off, lacerations about the knees, and multiple bruises. The injury to his head caused a concussion. Beaird lost any memory of the injury in the collision. He was in a state of shock for several days.

As a result of the injury to Beaird’s chest, he had an attack of bronchial pneumonia. The fractures of his pelvis finally healed, but the chipped off rim of the right acetabulum did not heal. This caused the Doctor in Nacogdoches to refer Beaird to an orthopedist in Houston.

Beaird was confined to the hospital in Nacogdoches for about sixty days. He was sent home with a hospital bed, and remained in bed for thirty days and returned to the hospital. Upon his return to the hospital he was confined for another two weeks. During the time he was in the hospital, he suffered a lot of pain. He has also continued to suffer pain until the time of the trial.

After he returned home from the hospital in Nacogdoches he was referred to Dr. Ed Smith, an orthopedic surgeon of Houston, Texas. There the doctor made a history and an examination of Beaird and recommended surgery to the right hip. In the surgery he removed the right hip joint, and through a grinding process ground down the ball on the hip joint so as to fit a metallic cup over the ball. Then, with a further grinding process he ground out the cup in the hip joint so that the metallic cup would fit into the joint. Beaird was in the hospital in Houston for about thirty days and returned home for further improvement. We might point ofit that the wife of Beaird is a nurse and undoubtedly rendered all the assistance that she could to his recovery.

The last time that Dr. Smith saw Beaird was September 4, 1956, at which time he felt like the operation had been successful. But as time went on, there was a slip *702 ping of the joint of the right hip from one-half to three-quarters of an inch. When Beaird would stand up on the hip the ball would insert itself in the hip joint. But when he would begin to walk or move around, on each step that he took it would fall down, and when he stepped back upon it, it would replace itself. This causes severe pain. He was seen by Dr. Caldwell, an orthopedist from Shreveport, Louisiana, who testified in the case along with Dr. Bell, the doctor in Nacogdoches. Both Dr. Caldwell and Dr. Bell testified that in their opinion Beaird was totally and permanently injured and would be for the rest of his life. They both testified that in their opinion that his injuries were still causing him pain and would continue to do so. Dr. Caldwell testified that it was possible to do another operation and remove the ball from the head of the hip joint and drive a pin into the marrow of the bone with another ball upon it. Or, they could do an operation and a fusion in the hip joint and the joint would be permanently stiff, and this would reduce the pain.

At the time of the collision, Beaird was employed by Perry Brothers in Lufkin, Texas, as a master decorator and baker at a salary of $90 per week, plus three meals per day. His trousers, shirts, aprons, caps and laundry were furnished. This would be equal to a weekly compensation of about $135.00 per week. At the time of the collision he was on his way to Nacogdoches to get some pans to bake a cake for a wedding.

■On October 25, 1958, the trial judge entered a judgment for the amount of damages as found by the jury, and the appellants have perfected their appeal and bring forward fourteen points of error.

By point one appellants complain of the action of the trial court in refusing to grant a new trial because of certain argument by counsel for the appellee, and contend that the argument was calculated to be prejudicial and that an instruction by the court could not cure the error. We have carefully examined the record of the argument, and find that it was not of such a nature to be so erroneous that an instruction to the jury could not have removed the same from their consideration. The argument was not objected to at the time it was made, and the error was pointed out for the first time in their amended motion for a new trial. Appellee takes the position that the argument was invited by the argument of counsel for the appellants, but we doubt that such is true. The argument complained of is as follows:

“If you were dealing with a race horse that was alleged to be worth $250,000, and the proof was put to yott here that a race horse was worth $250,000, you would have no hesitation in writing that in your verdict, would you? Here is a man that’s worth $250,000 on the basis of what he has actually lost in earning capacity and on the basis of what he will actually suffer and has suffered, on the basis of pain. Do you think more of your horses than you do of your men?”

We admit that the comparison is rather fallacious and such argument should never have been made, but we come to the fact that whether or not the jury considered the argument to such an extent as to give it credit in the judgment, we can not agree. In the argument, the attorney for the ap-pellee appealed to the jury to render judgment for $250,000. The jury returned a verdict of $171,200, $78,800 less than urged by the attorney for appellee. It does not seem to us that such argument resulted in injury to the appellants. Rule 434, Aultman v. Dallas Railway & Terminal Co., 152 Tex.

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Bluebook (online)
337 S.W.2d 699, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/viking-construction-company-v-beaird-texapp-1960.