Court Opinion

ID: 9760279
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 00:45:55.203136+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:10.358147
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
In our original opinion, we stated that both medical experts testified they would not pass Muro for work as a common laborer. Only Dr. Haley so testified. Appellee renews its insistence that the trial court erred in permitting Muro to prove the necessitous circumstances which impelled him to seek employment. This is the same matter which we discussed in Muró v. Houston Fire & Casualty Ins. Co., Tex.Civ. App., 310 S.W.2d 420. On cross-examination, appellee interrogated Muro, step by step, about every employment he had obtained since the injury. In detail he was questioned about the nature and duration of the work, seeking thereby to prove his ability to do hard work. To rebut this evidence, on re-direct, Muro testified that he went to work first with Mex-Mo, six months after the injury. He was sore, his feet, knees and back hurt him. He said, “I just had to work, and I went to work, pain and all.” He gave similar testimony about his other jobs. He testified that he was married, had six children, his wife was pregnant, and his credit exhausted. This proof was in answer to the work record which appellee relied upon to defeat the whole action. If it is a legitimate inference that a plaintiff is well because he works, it is a legitimate reply that he works, though sick, because he is in need. When defendant opens the door by proof that the plaintiff is well and able to work because he has worked, he will not be heard to complain of evidence that the plaintiff worked, not because he was well, but because of economic compulsion.
The motion is overruled.