Court Opinion

ID: 9768412
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 06:01:34.241899+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:40.440321
License: Public Domain

McCOLLUM, Justice,
concurring.
I concur in the result reached by the majority opinion and in those portions of the majority opinion that hold that Appellant did not waive her complaints on appeal by moving for judgment on the verdict; that Appellant was entitled to have the issue of injury separately submitted; and that res judicata would prevent Appellant from receiving medical benefits if the judgment of the trial court were permitted to stand. However, I respectfully depart from the majority opinion concerning what I regard as the inherent vice in the trial court’s broad form submission under the state of the pleadings, the evidence, and the issues before the Court.
The Appellant complains that the trial court erred in conjunctively submitting the issues of (1) injury sustained in the course and scope of her employment, and (2) producing cause of any incapacity to labor.
There is evidence that Appellant received an injury on December 6, 1988 in the course and scope of her employment; that she sought and received extensive medical consultation and treatment for these injuries; and, that she would require medical treatment for them in the future. Evidence was adduced during the trial that the medical expenses incurred were reasonable and were unpaid by the Appellee. Appellant by her pleading seeks to recover from the Appellee: the sum of “unpaid reasonable and necessary medical expenses”; “lifetime medical benefits under the provisions of Section 7, Article 8306”; and weekly benefits under the provisions of the Texas Worker’s Compensation Act for a general injury resulting in her total and permanent disability; or alternatively, weekly benefits, under the Act, for “one or more specific injuries.”

BROAD FORM SUBMISSION OF ISSUES

Following the presentation of the evidence, Appellant timely objected to the court’s question conjunctively submitting the issues;1 and simultaneously submitted requested questions that contained a disjunctive submission of the injury and course and scope of employment issues.2 Appellant’s objection to the conjunctive submission question was as follows:
The other objection that the Plaintiff has the Plaintiff would urge the Court to submit the issue of injury in course and scope separately from the issue of whether or not the injury was a producing cause of any total and/or partial incapacity and would refer the Court to the Plaintiffs submitted charge.
For the reason that the Plaintiffs understanding of the Worker’s Compensation *348Law is that if the jury should find an injury in course and scope that would entitle the Plaintiff to reasonable and necessary medical care for life for the injuries sustained on the job, the subject of this cause. If the issue of injury in course and scope is submitted conjunctively with the question of producing cause, then the entitlement which the Plaintiff might enjoy if there were a finding of injury in course and scope could be denied if the jury does not find a producing cause, thereby wrongfully withholding from the Plaintiff a benefit to which she might have otherwise been entitled.
Article 8306, section 7, entitles a worker who has received an injury in the scope of his or her employment to reasonable and necessary medical care that is not dependent upon the employee having been rendered incapacitated to labor either partially or totally.
The court is required to submit broad form questions, whenever feasible, to the jury which are raised by the pleadings and the evidence. The Appellant is thus entitled to issues submitting each of her theories of recovery. Tex.R.Civ.P. 277, 278. In Westgate, Ltd. v. State, 848 S.W.2d 448 (Tex.1992), it was stated that Tex.R.Civ.P. 277 is not absolute. It mandates broad form submission whenever feasible. In the case sub ju-dice, the broad form submission is not feasible in that it could not assure the court of facts found by a jury upon which it could base a verdict on all claims of relief of Appellant. Under such circumstances, the court should submit the issues disjunctively.

APPELLANT’S OBJECTION

The Plaintiff properly preserved error in connection with the conjunctive submission of the issues by timely objecting. Even though the Appellant did not direct the court’s attention to the effect that such submission would have on a jury’s consideration of reimbursement for medical expenses incurred, the error was preserved in connection with her claim for future medical benefits and did meet the test as set out in State Dept. of Highways & Public Transportation v. Payne, 838 S.W.2d 235, 241 (Tex.1992), “[tjhere should be but one test for determining if a party has preserved error in the jury charge, and that is whether the party made the trial court aware of the complaint, timely and plainly, and obtained a ruling.” In the ease at bar, the Appellant’s objection met this requirement.

ABUSE OF DISCRETION

The Court in Lee-Wright, Inc. v. Hall, 840 S.W.2d 572, 577 (Tex.App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 1992, no writ) held that the trial court’s discretion in submitting jury questions is subject to the requirement that the question submitted must (1) control the disposition of the case; (2) be raised by the pleadings and the evidence; and (3) properly submit the disputed issues for the jury’s determination. We would hold that the trial court’s conjunctive submissions did not meet the first and third prong of this test. Had the trial court submitted the issues disjunctively, the jury would have made a finding of whether Appellant sustained an injury in the course and scope of her employment thereby determining her entitlement to medical benefits for medical conditions resulting from the injury.
The Court in Smithson v. Cessna Aircraft Co., 665 S.W.2d 439 (Tex.1984) held that to amount to an abuse of discretion, the act of the trial court must have been either arbitrary or unreasonable. A reasonable action for the trial court would have been to follow the mandate of Texas Rules of Civil Procedure and not submit the issues in question conjunctively when it is not feasible to do so. By submitting the issues conjunctively, the trial court placed a greater burden upon the plaintiff than is required under Article 8306, section 7. In order to obtain her entitlement under this statute, the Appellant was also required to prove that she suffered a measure of incapacity to labor. All the statute required of her was to prove that she suffered an injury in the course and scope of her employment that required medical attention. The Appellant pointed out to the court the vice in this type submission and submitted correct requested issues curing the vice. I would hold that the action of the trial court was unreasonable and constituted an abuse of discretion.

INCOMPLETE VERDICT

As a result of the improper submission of the jury issues in question, an incomplete *349verdict resulted. An incomplete verdict will not support a judgment. The judgment in this case is flawed in that it is incomplete. The Supreme Court of Texas held in Fleet v. Fleet, 711 S.W.2d 1, 2 (Tex.1986), that a judgment cannot be based on a verdict containing unanswered issues unless the unanswered issues are immaterial, and that issues are only “immaterial” if their answers can be found elsewhere in the charge or if they cannot alter the effect of the verdict. Of course, the threshold issue in a claim for benefits under the Workers’ Compensation Act of Texas is whether or not the claimant received an injury. It is thus material and fits that definition as set out in Fleet.
Fleet also holds that a judgment of a trial court based on a partial verdict will not be reversed unless the party who would benefit from the answers objects to the court discharging the jury with unanswered questions. Id. The failure to object would not be applicable to the case sub judice because there were no questions unanswered by the jury. The Appellant objected to the submission of the question conjunctively and clearly pointed out to the trial court the vice contained in submitting the issues in that manner.
Given the above, I would nonetheless join the majority and reverse and remand the cause to the trial court.

. The question is set out in the majority opinion.

. Appellant timely presented the following requested questions:
Did NELDA HARRY receive an injury on or about December 6, 1988? (Answer 'Yes” or “No.")
Do you find from a preponderance of the evidence that Plaintiff received such injury in the course and scope of her employment by the University of Texas of the Permian Basin? (Answer "We do” or "We do not.”)