Case Name: Martha M. HOLLIMAN, Appellant, v. LEANDER INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT, Appellee
Court: Texas Courts of Appeals
Jurisdiction: Texas
Decision Date: 1984-08-22
Citations: 679 S.W.2d 92
Docket Number: No. 13854
Parties: Martha M. HOLLIMAN, Appellant, v. LEANDER INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT, Appellee.
Judges: Before SHANNON, POWERS and BRADY, JJ.
Reporter: South Western Reporter Second Series
Volume: 679
Pages: 92–106

Head Matter:
Martha M. HOLLIMAN, Appellant, v. LEANDER INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT, Appellee.
No. 13854.
Court of Appeals of Texas, Austin.
Aug. 22, 1984.
Rehearing Denied Nov. 7, 1984.
Joe Colbert, Tom A. Stribling, Law Offices of Joe Colbert, Austin, for appellant.
Karen Parker, J. Stockton Williams, Jr., Stubbeman, McRae, Sealy, Laughlin & Browder, Inc., Austin, for appellee.
Before SHANNON, POWERS and BRADY, JJ.

Opinion:
BRADY, Justice.
Appellant Martha M. Holliman filed a workers' compensation suit alleging that on November 21, 1978 she sustained an injury in the course and scope of her employment as a cafeteria manager for the Leander Independent School District. The jury found that appellant sustained some temporary total incapacity and that the injury was a producing cause of permanent partial incapacity. However, because the jury failed to find there was another employee of the same class as appellant who worked at least 210 days of the year immediately preceding the injury, judgment was entered for the school district.
Appellant argues four points of error. Briefly summarized, they are that the trial court erred in entering a take nothing judgment on the verdict because of findings that there was not an employee of the same class who had worked 210 days prior to appellant's injury; that such findings as to appellant's earning capacity during her partial incapacity were against the great weight and preponderance of the evidence; and that the jury's finding of permanent partial incapacity and earning capacity during that time cannot be reconciled.
While in the course of her employment at the cafeteria, Mrs. Holliman slipped and fell injuring her shoulder and hip. She was hospitalized and treated for phlebitis which resulted from her fall. She was also evaluated by a neurosurgeon because of concerns that she had developed a lumbar disc problem. Mrs. Holliman was again hospitalized in 1979 and underwent an EMG and a myleogram. The result of these tests indicated that she was unable to further pursue her occupation as a cafeteria manager for the district. She was, however, permitted to return to work as a cashier, which involved mostly sitting. This work involved no heavy lifting, prolonged standing or other duties. At the time of trial, Mrs. Holliman was undergoing physical therapy 2 to 3 times a week and, despite experiencing much pain, she continued to work as a cashier.
At the time of her injury Mrs. Holliman's employment was confined to the school year. She had not worked 210 days as the cafeteria manager immediately preceeding her injury. Thus, she sought to establish her average weekly wage by introducing evidence of the wages of another employee of the same class, Kenneth Odiorne, a cafeteria manager for St. Edward's University. Mr. Odiorne testified that based on his seventeen years as a cafeteria manager, the written job description given for Mrs. Holliman's job with the school district was "very definitely" the standard job description of a cafeteria manager, and essentially, with some variations, the same job he performed for his employer. While the evidence indicated that Mr. Odiorne's work was not identical in all respects to that of appellant's, it was sufficient because he was an employee engaged in similar employment. Pan American Insurance Co. v. Stokes, 370 S.W.2d 955 (Tex.Civ.App. 1963, no writ). Both parties to this appeal have cited this case to the court. See also Texas Employers' Ins. Ass'n v. McMahon, 509 S.W.2d 665 (Tex.Civ.App.1974, writ ref'd n.r.e.) in which the court stated:
Under subsection 2 of Art. 8309, § 1, Vernon's Ann. Civ.St., the criterion is the wage of "an employee of the same class." 63 Tex.Jur.2d, Workmen's Compensation, § 172, p. 80 (1965). We believe "class" refers to the type of employment, not the manner of wage computation: Cobb's testimony clearly establishes that there were other employees doing the same manner of work as plaintiff, who made at least a daily wage equivalent to the jury's finding.
Id. at 668.
A similar statement can be made of Mrs. Holliman. The testimony in this record establishes that she was essentially doing the same manner of work as Mr. Odiorne, and since there were no other witnesses or testimony to refute this evidence, we hold that the "same or similar" requirement was met by appellant. The jury finding to the contrary was against the great weight and preponderance of the evidence before it.
The jury found that Mrs. Holliman's injury was a producing cause of permanent partial incapacity, which the trial court defined correctly to mean "any degree of incapacity less than total incapacity, whereby a person suffers a reduction in earning capacity." By its answer that the claimant sustained permanent partial incapacity, the jury found that she sustained a reduction in earning capacity. The jury also found that her wage earning capacity during this time was $164.80 but it did not find an average weekly wage for Mrs. Holliman prior to her injury. Parenthetically, it should be stated that the claimant at the trial below did not request but affirmatively waived submission to a "just and fair" computation, which appellee argues is fatal to the claim. Since Mrs. Holliman failed to meet her burden of proving a wage rate, appellee argues, she should be denied recovery. We do not agree.
Art. 8309, § 1, subsection 3, states that when by reason of the shortness of the time of employment, as here, or for other "good and sufficient reasons, it is impracticable to compute the average weekly wages as above defined, it shall be computed by the Board in any manner which may seem just and fair to both parties.... " In a situation as here where the jury failed to find that there was another employee of the same class as appellant who worked at least 210 days in the preceding year in the same or similar employment and in the same or neighboring place, it would have been desirable for the trial court to send the jury back for further deliberation, under Tex.R.Civ.P. 295, with instructions to compute the average weekly wages of Mrs. Holliman under the Subdivision 3 "just and fair" standard. At least one appellate court in Texas has held that it was the "duty" of the trial court in a non-jury trial to fix a just and fair rate when the first two subdivisions did not apply. Texas Employers' Insurance Ass'n v. Wade, 288 S.W.2d 284 (Tex.Civ.App.1956, writ ref'd n.r.e.). Another court has held that the trial court has "broad discretion" in finding what wage rate would be "just and fair" to both parties. Texas Employers' Insurance Ass'n v. Davidson, 295 S.W.2d 482 (Tex.Civ.App.1956, writ ref'd n.r.e.). The better practice would have been for the trial court to submit conditionally a "just and fair" issue, which may have avoided the resulting conflicting findings of this jury.
This Court has previously held in Argonaut Southwest Insurance Company v. Morris, 420 S.W.2d 760, 766 (Tex.Civ.App. 1967, writ ref'd n.r.e.) that a liberal construction of the act requires "but slight proof of the applicable wage rate" where there is no real controversy. Appellee offered no witness or other evidence to refute or rebut the testimony of appellant's witness, Ken Odiorne, the manager of the St. Edward's University cafeteria. See American General Insurance Co. v. Hightower, 279 S.W.2d 397 (Tex.Civ.App.1955, writ ref'd n.r.e.), where the court said:
The language used in the third division of Section 1, supra, leads us to believe that no hard and fast, rule of construction should be applied in a way that would deprive an injured employee from proving his right to compensation under our Workman's Compensation Laws.
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It is now well settled by our courts that a liberal construction of our compensation law should be applied to afford the relief to injured employees and not to defeat the purposes for which the law was enacted. With this in view, our courts have held that in such cases as this, where there is no real effort made by the insurance carrier to disprove such facts as were established in the manner as was attempted in this case, a small amount of evidence was sufficient to discharge the burden cast upon the employee, [citing Southern Underwriters v. Boswell, 141 S.W.2d 442, 450 (Tex.Civ.App.1940), aff'd, 138 Tex. 255, 158 S.W.2d 280 (Tex. 1942) ].
Id. at 399-400.
Quoting Chief Justice Pope in Harris v. Casualty Reciprocal Exchange, 632 S.W.2d 714, 718 (Tex.1982) on the subject of liberal construction of the Workers' Compensation laws, he said:
We have 'repeatedly held that the workers' compensation act should be given a liberal construction to carry out the legislative plan of compensating injured workers and their dependents.
It has always been the law of this state that the Act is to be liberally construed in favor of the injured worker in order to effectuate the beneficent purposes for which it was enacted. Ward v. Charter Oak Fire Ins. Co., 579 S.W.2d 909 (Tex. 1979, no writ); Lively v. Blue Cross Hospital Service, Inc., 488 S.W.2d 474 (Tex.Civ. App.1972, writ ref'd n.r.e.); Texas Employers' Ins. Ass'n v. Steadman, 433 S.W.2d 756 (Tex.Civ.App.1968, no writ); Dotson v. Royal Indemnity Co., 427 S.W.2d 150 (Tex.Civ.App.1968, writ ref'd n.r.e.).
Appellee would have this Court deny any relief to appellant in this case even though the jury found that she sustained permanent partial incapacity while working for appellee in the course and scope of her employment as a school cafeteria manager. We do not think the compensation laws should be so narrowly construed.
Appellant further argues that the trial court should have disregarded or set aside the jury finding that claimant's earning capacity during her partial incapacity was $164.80 per week, since the same was against the great weight and preponderance of the evidence. We agree. The amount found was more than Mrs. Holli-man's earning capacity as a cafeteria manager prior to her injuries and the resulting dimunition in her earning capacity. Clearly, these findings are in irreconcilable conflict with the jury's answers that Mrs. Hol-liman's injury was a producing cause of permanent partial incapacity. The evidence clearly indicated that claimant was unable to return to work as a cafeteria manager but only as a cashier. The evidence further indicated that she experienced much pain and was substantially limited physically as a result of her injury. She could do no stooping, no heavy lifting, and no prolonged standing. Thus, the finding by the jury that Mrs. Holliman could earn more after her injury as a cashier than in her capacity before the injury as a cafeteria manager was also against the great weight and preponderance of the evidence.
The effect of the jury's finding here is that there was a reduction in earning capacity but the jury failed to provide the trial court with a fact finding that would permit the court to determine the amount of the reduction in earning capacity. Consequently, there is no way to determine the proper compensation rate to apply during Mrs. Holliman's permanent partial incapacity. The jury's finding of permanent partial incapacity therefore cannot be reconciled with no finding of a wage rate during the twelve months immediately prior to the date of her injury.
We, therefore, under Tex.R.Civ.P. Ann. 434 (Supp.1984) are compelled to reverse this cause and remand the same to the trial court for a new trial.