Court Opinion

ID: 9774387
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 18:18:39.167787+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:07.722384
License: Public Domain

DIES, Chief Justice,
dissenting on Motion for Rehearing.
With respect, I dissent. In holding that a trial court has power to include a lump sum in a settlement, but not a judgment, the majority has, I believe, placed a powerful weapon in the hands of insurance companies to force a favorable settlement. The judgment in this case illustrates why by awarding $26.25 per week to the widow, $17.50 per week for each child, and $8.75 to plaintiffs’ attorney.
Furthermore, the majority opinion has repealed Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann. art. 8306, § 15 (Vernon 1967), which reads:
“In cases where death or incapacity in any degree results from an injury, the liability of the association may be redeemed by the payment of a lump-sum by agreement of the parties thereto subject to the approval of the Industrial Accident Board. Where in the judgment of the Board manifest hardship and injury would otherwise result, the Board may compel the association to redeem the liability by payment of the award of the Board in a lump-sum, and a discount shall be allowed for present payment in accordance with Article 8306a of the Revised Civil Statutes of 1925, as amended.”
Of course, a district court has the same power as the Industrial Accident Board. Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann. art. 8307, § 5 (Vernon Supp.1978).
I readily recognize the seemingly inconsistent portions of art. 8306, § 8(d) (Vernon Supp.1978) and art. 8306, § 15, but it is our duty, if possible, to harmonize them. Ex parte Roloff, 510 S.W.2d 913 (Tex.1974); Gerst v. Oak Cliff Savings & Loan Ass% 432 S.W.2d 702, 706 (Tex.1968); Peterson v. Calvert, 473 S.W.2d 314, 315 (Tex.Civ.App.—Austin 1971, writ ref’d).
*302Railroad Commission of Texas v. Miller, 434 S.W.2d 670, 672 (Tex.1968), admonishes us to “take statutes as [we] find them,” to find
“. . . its intent in its language, and not elsewhere. They [the courts] are not the law making body. They are not responsible for omissions in legislation. They are responsible for a true and fair interpretation of written law. It must be an interpretation which expresses only the will of the makers of the law, not forced nor strained, but simply such as the words of the law in their plain sense fairly sanction and will clearly sustain.”
Quoted from Simmons v. Arnim, 110 Tex. 309, 220 S.W. 66, 70 (1920).
I, therefore, would interpret this act as giving a court authority to order a judgment benefit in a lump-sum upon findings of (a) manifest hardship and injury, and (b) the existence of a bona fide dispute as to liability.