Court Opinion

ID: 9447968
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 23:18:57.852263+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:14.856241
License: Public Domain

HUTCHESON, Circuit Judge
(dissenting) .
While the majority opinion in this case does cite most of the leading cases in this court and in the state court on the question of good cause and claims to follow them, it seems quite clear to me that, in its opinion, the majority has misapprehended and failed to apply the true touchstone in eases of this kind.
As the opinion of the majority states it, the touchstone is the bona fide belief of the claimant, while the authoritative decisions cited in the opinion show the test is not the subjective one of what or how the claimant actually felt about his injuries but the objective one of whether his actions were those of a person of ordinary prudence.
This is the way the test is stated in the authoritative decisions, state and federal:
“Advice from a physician that his injuries are not serious constitutes good cause for failure to file a claim within the prescribed time, provided the claimant, in the exercise of ordinary care, believes and relies upon that advice.” (emphasis added) Harkey v. Texas, Employers’ Insurance Ass’n, 146 Tex. 504, at page 508, 208 S.W.2d 919, 922.
In American Motorists Ins. Co. v. Boortz, 197 F.2d 900, this court, citing and relying on the authoritative Texas cases, at page 902, quoting from Pacific Employers’ Ins. Co. v. Oberlechner, 5 Cir, 161 F.2d 180, stated the principle thus:
“It has been thoroughly settled by decisions of the courts of Texas that the test as to whether or not an employee had shown good cause for his delay in filing a claim is whether or not he had prosecuted his claim for compensation with that degree of diligence that a reasonably prudent person would have exercised under the same or similar circumstances. (emphasis added)
“Each case must be determined on its own facts and circumstances, and, since this is a case governed by State statutes and State decisions, it does not seem highly important to us to say more than that we think that the evidence in this ease presented a question for the jury under the Texas decisions, and that the lower court did not err in so submitting it.”
In Copinjon v. Aetna Cas. & Surety Co, Tex.Civ.App, 242 S.W.2d 219, 220, one of the leading cases in Texas, it was said :
“It has been held that a good faith belief on the part of a claimant that his injuries were not serious may constitute ‘good cause’ for failing to present a claim within the statutory time. Such belief, however, must meet the primary test of ordinary prudence. Hawkins v. Safety Cas. Co, 146 Tex. 381, 207 S.W.2d 370.” (Emphasis added.)
It is, therefore, one thing to say that the claimant in good faith believed the things that he put up as good cause. It is quite another to say that a person *866of ordinary prudence would and should have so believed. If the test were merely the subjective one of the reality of the claimant’s belief in the cause he put forward, the test would have no basis in law to stand on. Based as it is on the objective standard, the presence or absence of good cause must be determined not by the sincerity of the claimant’s belief in the cause put forward but by whether a reasonably prudent person would have so believed.
As this court carefully pointed out in Fortenberry v. Maryland Cas. Co., 247 F.2d 702, 705, in these cases, this court is applying Texas law and is bound by the test laid down by Texas courts, “in determining what constitutes ‘good cause’ within this statute”. Since this is so, it is essential that this court follow this Texas test rather than making tests of its own, and it can do nothing but add to the confusion and defeat the purpose and intent of the law if this court, as the majority opinion now seems to do, makes the test of “good cause” the genuineness of the subjective feelings, rather than the objective question of what a reasonably prudent person would or would not have done.
Read the record as one will, I do not think there can be gleaned from it any evidence to support the legal conclusion of the district judge and of this court that good cause was shown for not filing.
I, therefore, dissent from the decision as erroneous, as making a severe breach in controlling Texas law, and as contrary to the decisions of this court in Forten-berry v. Maryland Casualty Co., supra, American Motors v. Boortz, supra, and Wedel v. Indemnity Ins. Co. of North America, 239 F.2d 302.
In Fortenberry v. Maryland Casualty Co., supra, Judge Rives, for the court, declared:
“In determining what constitutes ‘good cause’ within this statute, the Texas courts, in addition to establishing a general test of ordinary prudence, have declared certain reasons insufficient as matter of law to show good cause. Among such insufficient reasons are the mere belief that the claimant will recover or get well. * * * ” (Emphasis added.)
In my opinion, this case falls clearly within the principle there stated. I, therefore, Dissent from the affirmance of the judgment.