Court Opinion

ID: 9828248
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 18:14:16.440505+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:46.609676
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
Appellee’s motion for rehearing assigns two errors:
“First: The court erred in holding that the proceeding in this case, instituted in Callahan County, was a collateral attack upon the award of the. Industrial Accident Board.
“Second: The law does not require the Industrial Accident Board to adjudicate the location of the accident upon which the award is made.”
Of course, a proceeding to mature an award does not attack, collaterally or otherwise, the award itself. But if, as in this case, the very right of a party to a judgment maturing an award rests upon a contradiction of a recital therein, then, in so far as the suit undertakes to contradict such recital, the attack is collateral and the court is without jurisdiction to hear it. As stated in the opinion by Judge Speer in Vestal v. Texas Employers’ Insurance Association (Tex. Com. App.) 285 S. W. 1041, cited in our original opinion: “There is nothing in this article to suggest, much less to declare, that the trial upon a suit thus instituted shall be de novo, or that any question whatsoever that would tend to vary or destroy the award of the board should be considered or determined.”
In the case of Ezell v. Texas Employers’ Insurance Association (Tex. Civ. App.) 5 S. W.(2d) 594, it was field that, in a suit to mature an award, an agreed judgment in an amount less than the award was void because of the want of jurisdiction in the district court to render same. In that opinion the following language was employed: “There is no express provision in this section, or elsewhere in the act, that in such suit the court trying it may review, set aside, or revise the award of the board, or otherwise talce cognizance of the original controversy hetween the parties, and, under familiar rules of construction, no such power or jurisdiction may be implied; the procedure being purely statutory in its nature.” (Italics supplied.)
It is insisted by appellee that: “The question this court has decided is that the effect of the award of the Industrial Accident Board was to adjudicate the' location of the place where the accident occurred. An examination of this statute from Alpha to Omega does not give the Industrial Accident Board the authority nor does it make it material to determine where the accident occurred. The only question that the Industrial Accident Board has the authority to determine is, wad the party injured, the extent of the injury, and the amount of his compensation. The question of where the accident occurred does not come within the province of this Board at all. Therefore it is apparent on the face of it, as we understand the rule, that the recitation in the award that the accident occurred in Reeves County had no more binding effect than it would have had to recite that the appellee was black headed, when in fact he was red headed. It is simply a statement made by the Industrial Accident Board *849in its award which has no binding force and effect upon anybody.”
This procedure is analogous to a suit upon a judgment of a court of competent jurisdiction. In such a suit neither party; may impeach any recital in the judgment. 21 O. J. 1063. To modify that rule so as to permit one in such a proceeding to impeach a recital deemed to be immaterial, would, in our opinion, be useless. If the recital sought to be attacked is immaterial, there would be no occasion to attack it. The bare fact that a right of recovery rests primarily upon a successful attack of a recital makes such recital material. In the instant case, appellee’s judgment rests not alone upon the award which it matured, but also upon evidence impeaching á recital in that award. If the recital were such that the award could, be matured without reference thereto, it would be immaterial in this proceeding; but the fact that the recital is of such nature as to defeat appel-lee’s suit unless disproved renders it very material.
We believe the trial court was without jurisdiction to go behind the award in any particular or to hear or consider any evidence on the question of where the injury occurred, and the motion for rehearing will accordingly be overruled.