Court Opinion

ID: 9831149
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 20:51:38.441417+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:31.907759
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
Appellant in its motion for rehearing contends that our decision herein is in direct conflict with Standard Accident Insurance Co. v. Barron (Tex. Civ. App.) 47 S.W.(2d) 380. We fail to see any conflict in the two opinions. In the Barron Case the policy of insurance by its express terms only covered the employees of the company which were employed in Houston, at its plant where the work of cutting and polishing stone was being done and expressly excluded employees engaged in the stone quarry located in Kinney county, some four hundred miles distant from the Houston plant. It is pointed out that the work of quarrying stone and cutting and polishing stone are two very different kinds of work and are not the same general business.
In the case at bar the Elmer Sigler Company had just one general business; that of concrete form work, and its employees were insured in appellant’s company, which covered all of Elmer Sigler Company’s employees in San Antonio, Dallas, Houston, Waco, or elsewhere in Texas. There is no written contract or agreement contained in the policy to the contrary, nor is there any written in-dorsement approved by the insurance commissioner attached to the policy, and article 4913, R. S. 1925, provides that all other agreements are void. Appellant points out that the insurance policy is not before us, but the record is too plain for doubt that any agreement affecting this policy was nothing more than an oral understanding between appellant and Elmer Sigler Company. The only agreement ever reduced to writing was the indorsement attempted to be placed on Walsh, Burney & Key’s insurance policy carried by the Southern Surety Company, and which in-dorsement was disapproved and not permitted to stand by the insurance commissioner.
*1018The Barron Case holds that an employer may insure all of his employees engaged in one line of business and by the expressed terms of the policy exclude certain other employees engaged in another and different business. In the case at bar we hold that a company which has insured all of its employees engaged in its general business in the state of Texas with a certain company cannot, by a private oral agreement, exclude a part of its employees from the benefit of such a policy.
The Supreme Court, in denying an application for a rehearing upon application for writ of error, in the Barron Case, 53 S.W.(2d) 769, 770, said: “The rule is well established that employers of labor operating under the Workmen’s Compensation Act cannot cover part of their employees and leave part of them uncovered, where such empoyees are engaged in the same general business or enterprise, and a policy issued thereon will cover all employees in such business. Case of Cox, 225 Mass. 220, 114 N. E. 281; Reports Opinions of Attorney General 1916-1918, p. 321.”
Appellant’s motion for a rehearing will be overruled.