Court Opinion

ID: 9660794
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 22:21:07.983754+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:22.353475
License: Public Domain

KILGARLIN, Justice,
dissenting.
I must dissent. On the basis of a supposed ambiguity of answers, this court nullifies a long-used and approved special issue. Not only will this holding befuddle the bench and bar as to how to submit contribution for prior injuries in worker’s compensation cases, the opinion is bound to perplex grammarians and mathematicians alike. Moreover, not since the want of a nail/shoe/horse led to Louis XII’s loss of Italy to Henry VIII in the Battle of the Spurs, has something as inconsequential as the want of an “of” produced such a momentous result.
In Fidelity & Casualty Company of New York v. Shores, 329 S.W.2d 911, 914-15 (Tex.Civ.App.—Fort Worth 1959, writ ref’d), this court approved the statement, “[t]o construe the Workmen’s Compensation Act or any part thereof, where there is room for construction, so that absurd consequences would be the necessary result should be avoided.” Yet, the majority approval of the trial court formula of subtracting percentages, rather than multiplying them as should be done, will lead inevitably to such consequences. For example, *413should the jury have answered that the combined effects of the two prior thumb injuries had contributed 25% to the present incapacity, then 25% subtracted from 25% would leave 0%. The 25% contribution would thus be transposed into 100% of the current disability. But to really demonstrate the potential for absurd results, let us suppose that the jury had found that the two prior thumb injuries had contributed 50% of the incapacity found by them. How does one go about subtracting 50% from 25%, as the majority would have us do under its approved formula? The only way to avoid the consequences envisioned in Shores is to multiply the percentage of present incapacity by the percentage that the prior injuries contributed to that incapacity.
The majority’s answer to this is that if “the jury answered 50% to the issues, the interpretation actually applied by the jury would have been readily known, ...” 689 S.W.2d at 411. I submit sheer chaos will result if we start allowing trial judges to second guess juries. Such a rule can never be workable. Let us assume that in different cases two juries each find 50% loss of use with contribution of 25% from prior injuries. Judge A says the jury meant 25% as being one-half of 50%. Judge B says the jury meant 25% as being one-fourth of 50%. Under the majority holding, both judgments would be affirmed. Such simply cannot be. Trial judges are not to be permitted to interpret jurors’ intent. Northern Texas Traction Co. v. Armour & Co., 116 Tex. 176, 288 S.W. 145 (1926). As was said in Moore v. Moore, 67 Tex. 293, 297, 3 S.W. 284, 286 (1887), “as to the true construction of such a verdict, neither the lower court nor this court is permitted to speculate.”
We cannot posit as a rule of construction a holding that would permit both multiplication and subtraction as a judge may see fit. Certainty of the law demands that we either approve one formula or the other, and there is no question that multiplication, not subtraction, is the proper computation method. See, e.g., Consolidated Casualty Insurance Co. v. Jackson, 419 S.W.2d 232, 236-37 (Tex.Civ.App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 1967, writ ref’d n.r.e.); Aetna Casualty & Surety Co. v. Depoister, 393 S.W.2d 822, 829 (Tex.Civ.App.—Corpus Christi 1965, writ ref’d n.r.e.); and, Jones v. Travelers Insurance Co., 374 S.W.2d 779, 782 (Tex.Civ.App.—Beaumont 1964, writ ref’d n.r. e.).
The majority, while conceding that the special issues submitted in Consolidated Casualty were virtually identical to those submitted here, attempts to distinguish that case' from this one by saying that Consolidated Casualty was a general injury case. While that may be true, it makes no difference. The right of contribution stems from the provisions of Tex.Rev.Civ. Stat.Ann. art. 8306, § 12c. Speaking for this court in Sowell v. Travelers Insurance Co., 374 S.W.2d 412, 416 (Tex.1963), former Chief Justice Greenhill stated, “[sjection 12c makes no distinction between specific and general injuries, and we are unwilling to write such a distinction into the statute.”
The majority admits that the special issues used in this case were taken verbatim from 2 State Bar of Texas, Texas Pattern Jury Charges PJC 25.05 (1970). The pattern jury charge issue is substantially the same as the one contained in 11 Stayton Texas Forms § 7005, no. 23 (1962), which states, “[f]rom a preponderance of the evidence find what percentage the injury of (date) contributed to the disability, if any, of Plaintiff’s (specific member) previously found by you. Answer in terms of percentage.” Likewise, the pattern jury charge is similar to the issue recommended in J. Gar-ey, Handling a Workmen’s Compensation Claim 127 (1968), which reads, “What do you find from a preponderance of the evidence to be the percentage of incapacity resulting solely from the prior job injuries of _, 19_ and _, 19_? Answer in percentages.”
Nor does the pattern jury issue differ substantially from the issue recommended by Charles J. Lieck, Sr. in Lieck’s Legal Trial Aid (p. 286 in 1951 ed. and pp. 386-87 in 1959 ed.), which reads, “what do you *414find, from a preponderance of the evidence, to be the percentage that such prior injury has contributed, if any, to plaintiffs incapacity, if any? Answer by stating a percentage.” It should be noted that none of the form issues incorporate the word “of” after the word “percentage.” Moreover, as the comment to 2 State Bar of Texas, Texas Pattern Jury Charges PJC 25.05 observes, its recommended form of submission is used in St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance Co. v. Murphree, 163 Tex. 534, 357 S.W.2d 744 (1962).
For the first thirty-odd years of the Worker’s Compensation Act the contribution question was usually submitted in a form different from the Pattern Jury Charges suggestion. The formerly used issue inquired as to the percentage of present incapacity contributed solely by the injury made the basis of the current claim. See, e.g., Texas Indemnity Ins. Co. v. Perdue, 64 S.W.2d 386 (Tex.Civ.App.—Amarillo 1933, writ ref'd); Texas Employers Insurance Ass’n v. Griffis, 141 S.W.2d 687 (Tex.Civ.App.—Galveston 1940, no writ); Traders and General Insurance Co. v. Watson, 131 S.W.2d 1103 (Tex.Civ.App.—Eastland 1939, writ dism’d judgmt cor.).
In his treatise, Lieck argued that the use of the word “solely” was objectionable as it denied a claimant his right to recover for aggravation as contained in the statutory definition of injury. Twelve years later, using Lieck’s reasoning, this court, in Sowell v. Travelers Insurance Co., disapproved under the facts of that case, the issue, “[w]hat percentage of plaintiffs present incapacity * * * is attributable solely to the [injury made the basis of plaintiffs suit]” (emphasis in original). 374 S.W.2d at 414. Since then, the contribution issue has been routinely submitted as suggested by Lieck, Stayton, Garey, and the Pattern Jury Charges.
The majority discards a special issue that has been recommended, and subsequently approved, for over thirty-four years with the sole justification that an answer to the issue is susceptible to two different interpretations. The reason given for its finding of ambiguity is that there is no express direction “as to what the percentages in special issues 10 and 13 are to be taken of, ...” 689 S.W.2d at 410. Yet, nothing could be more plain. The jury was asked to find the percentage (an amount even the majority must concede is from zero to 100) the prior injury has contributed to 25% (the incapacity found). The submitted issue is gramatically correct, and most grade school mathematicians are sufficiently proficient to recognize that percentages are computed by multiplying the lesser part by the whole.
But even if the jury findings were ambiguous, that is an additional reason why this case should be resolved in favor of Delbert Jackson. The Worker’s Compensation Act should be liberally construed to favor the claimant. The majority attempts to avoid this time-honored law of statutory construction by saying that fact findings do not count. While this may be the interpretation that the present majority now gives to the Worker’s Compensation Act, it has certainly not always been so. In a case totally devoted to calculation of percentages, Texas Employers Insurance Ass’n v. Holmes, 145 Tex. 158, 196 S.W.2d 390 (1946), this court discussed at length the statutory construction policy of Texas courts. When the statutory language permits, the act is to be construed broadly and liberally, to favor the employee. Holmes traces in detail the authority for that proposition all the way back to the inception of the act, itself. Contrary to the conclusion of the majority opinion, the ambiguity, if indeed it is an ambiguity, is not in the jury answer, but in the construction the trial judge placed on the answer, which is a matter of law, entitling Jackson to a favorable construction.
Texas has had a worker’s compensation statute for seventy years. But for a six year interlude, contribution has been a part of that law since article 8306, section 12c was adopted in 1917. Not until our holding today can a single case be found ever suggesting, much less holding, that the per*415centage of contribution from prior compen-sable injuries is to be subtracted from, as opposed to multiplied by, the current disability. With this condemning of the Pattern Jury Charges submission of the contribution percentage issue, I would respectfully inquire what are the trial bench and bar to do from this point forward? We are provided no answer by the majority opinion.
Although the statement of facts is absent, this court possesses as much information from the record forwarded in this case as did the court in Texas Employers Insurance Ass’n v. Holmes when it answered a certified question from the court of civil appeals as to how to calculate compensation in a situation of partial loss of use in a specific injury case. The Holmes court was able- to do it. So should we.
Finally, we come to the matter of disposition of this cause. The majority says “[hjaving held that the issues were susceptible to the interpretations of both Jackson and the courts below, the law is clear that we must affirm the judgments below in this case.” 689 S.W.2d at 412. The law is no such thing. In Northern Texas Traction Co. v. Armour & Co., an ambiguous verdict resulted in a remand, with the statement “[w]e regard the verdict as being ambiguous to an extent preclusive of that certainty which ought to be a part of administration of the law.” 288 S.W. at 146. No case cited by the majority as authority for rendition, least of all State v. Hale, 136 Tex. 29, 146 S.W.2d 731 (1941), stands for the proposition that ambiguity exists on the basis of a judge’s subjective analysis of a jury verdict.
I would reverse the judgments of the courts below and render judgment that Delbert Jackson should have and recover compensation at the rate of $33.69 per week for the permanent partial incapacity of his hand.
WALLACE and ROBERTSON, JJ., join in this dissent.