Court Opinion

ID: 9778534
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 21:11:25.482312+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:11.337705
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
In her motion for rehearing plaintiff complains of the statement in our opinion that the - next morning after his injury, James M. Fountain’s arm “was placed in a cast by a bone specialist.” It was plaintiff herself who so testified. Her .testimony to that effect will be found in the Statement of Facts, page 12, lines 23 and 24.
Plaintiff -also complains of- our statement that “Dr. Johnson had been practicing a number of years.” Again, we were relying on pláintiff’s' own testimony as shown in the Statement of Facts, page 14, lines 19-21. Dr. Johnson herself testified that she graduated from medical school June 24, 1946, and had practiced in Houston, Texas since July 1948. The record does not indicate whether she had practiced elsewhere than in Houston.
Plaintiff further complains of the following statement in our opinion: “The X-ray films taken Nov. 15, 1949 were sent to Dr. Harry Fishbein, roentgenologist, who ventured a diagnosis- of a pathologicál fracture and suggested a K.U.B. film, that is, a kidney-urinary-bladder study.” Plaintiff says that Dr. Johnson testified as to what Dr. Fishbein told her over plaintiff’s objection that such testimony was hearsay. W'e find no record of any such objection in the record. Nor does plaintiff in her brief cross-assign the court’s adverse ruling. The record does show that the trial court sustained plaintiff’s exceptions 1, 2, 3, and. 5, to the deposition, but these exceptions are not copied in the record; so there is no way for us to know which of the answers were attacked. Anyway, the error, if it was error, was harmless for it neither added to nor took away from the plaintiff’s burden to make out a case. The testimony was offered by defendant seeking to prove that deceased died of cancer. It was. not necessary for defendant to offer any such testimony. It may be disregarded without affecting plaintiff’s burden to show that the injuries sustained Oct. 7, 1949 were the cause of Fountain’s death.
Another of. plaintiff’s points on rehearing is that Dr. Johnson’s testimony in which she gave her opinion as to what caused Fountain’s death, was also hearsay. We do not agree, but if we are wrong, the error was harmless for the reasons above stated. We repeat that the burden was not on defendant to disprove any part of plaintiff’s case.
We have studied the statement of facts in this case very carefully and we find no reason to believe that if we remand the cause plaintiff’s case will be more fully developed. Plaintiff is not satisfied .with Dr. - Glemmie Johnson’s testimony that deceased had cancer. In her motion for rehearing she says that the point should be more fully developed by obtaining the testimony of other Houston doctors. An issue was submitted to the jury as to whether deceased was afflicted with cancer at the time of his death. The answer of the jury was favorable to plaintiff. Consequently her case will not be helped by a further development of the point. We did not reverse the trial court’s judgment on the ground that deceased did or did not have cancer. We reversed tlie case because there was no evi*347dence that the death of James M. Fountain was effected solely through accidental means — that is, solely as a result of the injuries sustained in the accident of Oct. 7, 1949. That was plaintiff’s burden. She would not be relieved of that burden even if the Houston doctors testified favorably to her on defendant’s claim of cancer.
All other points in plaintiff’s motion for rehearing have been considered and are overruled.
Motion for rehearing overruled.