Court Opinion

ID: 9771197
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 16:36:35.283245+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:26.969120
License: Public Domain

OSBORN, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from the overruling of Appellant’s Point of Error No. Two and conclude that the trial court was not authorized to make a deemed finding on the issue of notice of the injury to the employer within 30 days as required by Article 8307, § 4a, Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann. (Vernon 1967).
Several courts have passed on similar issues without any discussion of the authority of the trial court to make implied findings. The identical question was before the court in Texas Employers’ Ins. Assoc. v. Hilderbrandt, 62 S.W.2d 209 (Tex.Civ.App.—Beaumont 1933, no writ). No issue of notice was submitted to the jury and the Court held that “without a jury finding thereon in appellee’s favor the judgment was without support.” Id. at 210. No mention is made of any implied finding to support the judgment. Without any reference to that holding, the Court in Adams v. Texas Compensation Ins. Co., 573 S.W.2d 612 (Tex.Civ.App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 1978, no writ) reached the opposite results and held that where no issue was submitted and no objection was made to the charge that the issue was deemed found by the court in such manner as to support the judgment. No discussion is found in the opinion as to how notice was necessarily referable to other submitted issues.
In Superior Trucks, Inc. v. Allen, 664 S.W.2d 136 (Tex.App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 1983, writ ref'd n.r.e.) the Court pointed out that the purpose of the “necessarily referable” requirement of Rule 279 is to give parties, against whom issues are to be deemed, fair notice of a partial submission, so that they have an opportunity to object to the charge or request submission of the missing issues to the ground of recovery or defense. Professor Hodges wrote that it must “be kept in mind that the purpose of the requirement that the submitted issue be ‘necessarily referable’ to the ground of which the omitted issue is a part, is to put the parties on notice of the possibility of a finding by the judge. It is only when this is accomplished that the consent to a finding by the court, and waiver of a jury finding is real:” G. Hodges, Special Issue Submission in Texas, at 214 (1959). In this case the majority opinion does not state which issue as submitted the notice would be referable to. I do not believe it is referable to the issues on occupational disease, incapacity, wage rate, or hardship because notice is totally severable from those issues.
This Court in Hooper v. Torres, 790 S.W.2d 757 (Tex.App.—El Paso 1990, writ denied) held that where the issue consists of only one element, there can be no implied *541finding. Clearly, the issue of whether notice was given within thirty days only involves one issue. See 2 State BaR of Texas, Texas PATTERN JURY CHARGES PJC 28.01 (1989).
Thus, there is no series of issues to which the unsubmitted notice issue is “necessarily referable” and the Appellee has failed to obtain a finding on an issue upon which he had the burden of proof. Houston Gen. Ins. Co. v. Vera, 638 S.W.2d 102 (Tex.App.—Corpus Christi 1982, writ ref'd n.r.e.).