Court Opinion

ID: 9767800
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 05:27:26.851494+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:33.103364
License: Public Domain

On Appellee’s Motion for Rehearing.
Careful and painstaking consideration has been given to the motion of appel-lee. We still 'adhere to our views expressed in the original opinion. There was no direct evidence that plaintiff was covered by compensation insurance. This argument, in effect, informed the jury of such fact. This placed plaintiff (appellant) in the position of seeking to recover double damages, to recover for his own benefit what the compensation carrier had or would pay him, and to likewise recover from the appellee. Counsel’s voluntary statement and argument, unsupported by evidence, had the effect of placing plaintiff in a false light before the jury. The argument conveyed the fact to the jury that *811plaintiff was protected 'by compensation insurance. From the fact that Tankersley, another employee, was suing the compensation carrier of appellant it possibly might have been inferred that the appellee had compensation insurance which protected appellant. If so, this was fortified by the voluntary and intentional statement of ap-pellee’s counsel. The statement eithér meant one of two things — that appellant had compensation insurance, or that he was covered by compensation insurance of O. H. McAllister Trucking Company. We think the record fails to show that appellant was not harmed by this improper argument. Chapin v. Putnam Supply Co., 124 Tex. 247, 76 S.W.2d 469.
It is ordered that the motion for rehearing ¡be in all things overruled.