Court Opinion

ID: 9775757
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 19:08:31.3325+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:30.872615
License: Public Domain

OPINION ON APPELLEE SAMMY BOY-ETT’S MOTION FOR REHEARING
KENNEDY, Justice.
In our original opinion in this cause, we sustained appellant’s twenty-ninth point of error and ordered the judgment in the cause reduced by the amount of $560,-200.00. This amount represented a $265,-000.00 cash settlement, plus $600.00 per month times the forty-one year life expectancy of the appellee. In his motion for rehearing, appellee has pointed out to us for the first time that the $600.00 per month award was a settlement with the worker’s compensation carrier. While ap-pellee did not apprise us of this development in his brief, we note from the transcript that the settlement was in fact with the compensation carrier.
Our Supreme Court has made it quite clear that a worker’s compensation carrier is not a settling party for the purposes of either a credit or a proportionate reduction in favor of the nonsettling party. Teakell v. Perma Stone Company, 658 S.W.2d 563 (Tex.1983); Varella v. American Petrofina Co. of Texas, 658 S.W.2d 561 (Tex.1983). We, therefore, withdraw that portion of our opinion which authorized the reduction of the award by the amount paid as settlement by the compensation carrier and order that the plaintiff’s reward be reduced only by the $265,000.00 cash award received by the plaintiff by the settling defendants. The remainder of the points raised by appellee Samtay Boyetts motion for rehearing are overruled.
BISSETT, J., not participating.