Court Opinion

ID: 9645419
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 21:23:53.701507+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:28.099232
License: Public Domain

MASSEY, Chief Justice.
I respectfully dissent.
The author of the majority opinion and I agree that the specific disagreement which exists lies in my belief that under the law it is conclusively presumed that the defendant insurance company was “surprised” by the allowance of the plaintiff’s trial amendment, while he is of the opinion that whether said defendant was “surprised” was a matter for determination by the trial court under all the circumstances of the case.
It would seem to me that even if I am wrong in my opinion as to “surprise” being conclusively presumed, certainly it would be presumed in behalf of the insurance company with the burden cast upon the plaintiff to demonstrate that said defendant was not “surprised”. This has not been demonstrated.
It is to be borne in mind that the “surprise” in question was not the testimony (for I am of the opinion that with the injection of arthritis into the case by the defendant insurance company all the testimony introduced by the plaintiff was admissible) — but that the “surprise” lay in the broadening of the basis of the allegations in plaintiff’s pleadings, thus enlarging his cause of action.
The paragraph in the Dillingham case which is referred to in the majority opinion as dictum inconsistent with the holding reads as follows, 262 S.W.2d 752:
“It is not necessarily the existence of facts which make an issue of fact between parties in litigation, but it is the allegation in pleadings of facts as a ground or basis of relief which make the issue. In the case at hand there is no doubt but what the appellant knew that the appellee had arthritis. The appellant could even have premised its defense to the cause of action *652originally alleged for Workmen’s Compensation benefits upon which he went to trial upon the fact that the appellee had preexisting arthritis and that that condition and not appellee’s injury was the cause of his disability. Indeed, findings of arthritis as the cause of disability under such a condition of the pleadings would have required a denial of recovery by the judgment, and even in such a case the allowance of a trial amendment which would allege aggravation of the preexisting arthritic condition — thus becoming a refutation of the defense made, would not be permitted because it would constitute an alteration of ap-pellee’s cause of action.”
In the instant case, under the state of the pleadings as they existed at the time the case was submitted to the jury in special issues, the trial court properly defined the term “injury” as follows: “You are instructed that the term ‘injury’ as used in this charge, shall be considered to mean damage or harm to the physical structure of the body and such diseases and infections as naturally result therefrom, or the acceleration or aggravation of any disease previously or subsequently existing by reason of such damage or harm to the physical structure of the body.” (Emphasis supplied.)
But for the trial court’s allowance of the trial amendment the definition of “injury” would stop with the comma immediately preceding the emphasized clause upon aggravation, for it is the definition given in the Workmen’s Compensation Act itself. Vernon’s Ann.Tex.Civ.St. art. 8306, Sec. 20. The inclusion in the definition of “injury” of the language upon aggravation was warranted only because of the allegations in the amendment of the plaintiff, for it is not included in the definition of the statute. It is “judge-made law” which entitles a claimant under our Act to recover because of disability resulting from a condition previously or subsequently existing when and where the damage or harm to the physical structure of the body, resulting because of a compensable injury, has accelerated or aggravated the same so as to occasion such disability. See Texas Employers’ Ins. Ass’n v. Parr, Tex.Com.App. 1930, 30 S.W.2d 305 and cases following; 45 Tex.Jur., p. 492, “Workmen’s Compensation”, Sec. 98, “Pre-existing Disease or Condition as Cause or Contributing Cause”.
Let us suppose that the trial amendment had not been permitted. Under that supposition the definition of “injury” would not have contained the words upon aggravation. Would not the insurance company have been entitled, in that event, to a special issue reading substantially as follows : “Do you find from a preponderance of the evidence that Willie Milligan’s incapacity, if any, since date of - was not the result of a preexisting arthritis?” And, if the jury had refused to answer said issue in the affirmative for plaintiff would not the insurance company have been entitled to a judgment relieving it of any liability for compensation after the date inquired about in the issue? I believe that under those circumstances the insurance company would have been entitled to such an issue and to a judgment in its behalf in the event an answer had been returned favorable to it.
With the allowance of the trial amendment such issue ceased to be an ultimate issue in the case. Even if submitted and answered favorably to the insurance company such would avail it nothing if the jury should be entitled to find, as it did in this case, that plaintiff sustained an “injury” which was defined not only in the terms of the statutory definition but with the additional element proper to be added to such definition only when the pleadings and evidence in the cause raise the issue of acceleration or aggravation.
I believe that the statement from the opinion in Texas Employers’ Ins. Ass’n v. Dillingham, quoted in the forepart of this dissenting opinion, correctly states the law. If it does the correct judgment to be rendered in the instant case would be one of reversal and remand.