Court Opinion

ID: 9759368
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 00:14:03.709898+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:15:35.553515
License: Public Domain

ON MOTION FOR REHEARING
DODSON, Justice.
On motion for rehearing, appellant International Insurance Company maintains that *870the evidence conclusively shows only partial incapacity because the employee got and kept employment which she was physically able to perform. Appellant further asserts that we failed to consider all of the evidence by ignoring the employee’s judicial admissions that she got and kept employment. The dissenting opinion also asserts that Mrs. Torres judicially admitted that “she obtained and retained employment which she is physically able to do,” thus precluding “a finding of total and permanent incapacity during the periods of such employment.”
It is undisputed that Mrs. Torres was temporarily employed by Feather Fabrics for approximately five months. Similarly, she was employed in a temporary position with Texas Instruments for the three weeks prior to, and continuing at, the time of trial. With regard to this employment, Mrs. Torres testified on direct examination:
Q. Were you able to do that work [at Feather Fabrics]?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you have any problems while you were doing it, with your back?
A. Well, sometimes but I didn’t complain because I needed to work, I needed the money to support my kids.
Mrs. Torres also testified that there had been no significant period of time between the accident on June 14, 1974, and the trial on September 21, 1977, when she had been free of her back problems. Mrs. Torres did, however, testify on cross-examination that she was “able to do the work okay physically” at both Feather Fabrics, where her job required her only to thread yarn through a machine from a sitting position, and at Texas Instruments, where she placed labels on calculators from a sitting position. We do not find this isolated statement concerning physical ability to be a deliberate, clear and unequivocal testimonial declaration constituting a judicial admission of partial incapacity which would preclude a jury finding of total and permanent incapacity in this case. See Jennings v. Texas Employers’ Insurance Association, 397 S.W.2d 127, 128 (Tex.Civ.App.—Waco 1965, no writ), and the Supreme Court cases cited therein for a positive statement of the test concerning testimonial declarations as judicial admissions.
Under the Insurance Company’s contention, if there is any evidence that the claimant obtained and retained employment after the injury which the claimant is physically able to do, then the trial court is required to instruct the jury not to find total and permanent incapacity for any period during which the claimant worked. Alternatively, the trial court is required to set aside the jury verdict of total incapacity and grant a new trial. When carried to its logical conclusion, the Insurance Company’s contention would require preemptive instructions and successive new trials, until the jury, the trial court and the appellate courts agreed on the precise degree of incapacity.1 We do not perceive the controlling case law to dictate this drastic preemption of the province of the jury. Rather the courts of this state have generally refrained from attempting to substitute their judgment for that of the jury on the issue of degree of incapacity. We further note that the courts of this state have wisely refrained from attempting to establish a formula for the determination of the precise degree of incapacity a worker suffers other than the usual definitions of total incapacity and partial incapacity.
In conclusion, we reiterate that in determining the Insurance Company’s factual sufficiency points of error, we have reviewed and considered all of the evidence in the record, both favorable and unfavorable to the Insurance Company’s position, and having done so we reaffirm our determination that the jury finding of total and permanent incapacity is not so against the great weight and preponderance of the evidence as to be manifestly unjust. The In*871surance Company’s motion for rehearing is overruled. With these further comments, discussion and considerations, we adhere to our original opinion affirming the judgment of the trial court in the cause.
REYNOLDS, J., dissenting.

. Under Rule 326, Texas Rules of Civil Procedure, the trial court may grant only two new trials in a cause because of insufficiency or weight of the evidence; however, no limitation is placed on the appellate courts.