Court Opinion

ID: 9832931
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 22:18:44.624728+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:55.764652
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
Appellant, in its motion for rehearing, in addition to its other assignments contending that we were in error in our decision and disposition of the case as shown by our original opinion, urges fundamental error in the judgment of the trial court. It is insisted that there was no pleading to support the verdict wherein the jury found, in response to a special issue submitted, that plaintiff’s injury had resulted “in the total incapacity of the plaintiff J. E. Montgomery’s right arm.” If the record supports this contention, a fundamental error would be shown, as we held in Sivalls Motor Co. v. Chastain (Tex. Civ. App.) 5 S.W. (2d) 185, which appellant cites in support of its motion. While plaintiff’s petition contains general allegations to the effect that plaintiff, by the alleged injury, had suffered a permanent disability and total incapacity, it was also alleged that, by virtue of the alleged injuries, “the plaintiff has a total permanent disability to his arm by virtue of said un-united fracture.” Again it was alleged: “That by losing the use of said arm he is unable to hold employment or perform his usual and customary work as a laborer and carpenter, or any other kind of labor, and that he is not fitted for other employment except manual labor.” These allegations are not inconsistent with the general averments of permanent and total incapacity. The issue submitted to the' jury, and which is necessary to the support of the judgment, was: “Did such injury result in the total incapacity of the plaintiff J. E. Montgomery’s right arm ?” The jury made an affirmative finding upon this issue, and in response to another issue found that the injury would be permanent. No assignments question the form of the submission of these issues.
R. S. 1925, art. 8306, § 12, enumerates certain injuries, the compensation for which shall be in lieu of all other compensation except medical aid, hospital services, and medicines. One such specific injury is: “Eor the loss of an arm at or above the elbow, sixty per cent of the average weekly wage during two hundred weeks.” It is also provided in the same article that: “In the foregoing enumerated cases of permanent, partial incapacity, it shall be considered that the permanent loss of the use of a member shall be equivalent to and draw the same compensation as the loss of that member.”
We are therefore of opinion that the pleading was sufficient to support a verdict to the effect that plaintiff had suffered a permanent partial incapacity, in that he had lost the permanent use of his arm. We also think that, in the absence of objection to the form-of the issues submitted, they are properly to be construed as calling for such findings.
Being of opinion that the motion for rehearing should be overruled, it is accordingly so ordered.