Court Opinion

ID: 9653418
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 17:46:31.791363+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:59.080430
License: Public Domain

SMITH, Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. The Court places too little emphasis upon the fact that Parker was exposed to radiation over a period of 41/2 years. The Court makes no effort to give proper effect to the great volume of probative evidence which sustains the verdict of the jury and the judgment of the trial court that Parker sustained injuries resulting in total and permanent incapacity. The Court apparently has forgotten for the moment the purpose of the Texas Workmen’s Compensation Act. The Court surely will agree with me that Parker’s testimony elimininates all probable causes of his condition other than the radioactivity to which he was exposed. His employer knew that it was dangerous to the health and life of any individual to work under conditions as those which surrounded Parker. Signs erected on the plant site read: “Caution — Radioactive Materials,” yet, the employer, knowing that Parker was required to work in and around and handle radioactive materials that gave off radioactive rays of various types, required or allowed him to work for a great length of time without bodily protection of any kind.
The Court seems to forget that the Act strips the insurance company of the defenses of assumed risk and contributory negligence. The evidence in this case showed that Parker absorbed a considerable quantity of unnatural radioactive materials during his 4½ years of employment. His employer did not concern itself about the safety of Parker for a period at least from May, 1961 to September, 1963, except to erect the signs heretofore mentioned. Although he was exposed to and came in close contact with radioactive materials by handling, yet, the employer did not during that time furnish him with a “badge,” an instrument which measures radioactive materials. In fact, such protection was furnished for a period of not more than two or three weeks during the remainder of the period of employment. During all this time Parker was working around and constantly, while in the course of his employment, was compelled to face the consequences of having to work with and around radioactive nuclear materials.
I can understand after reading the statement of facts why the jury concluded that Parker’s extreme exposure to these radioactive materials was a causative factor of the development of cancer.
The trial court’s judgment should be upheld for the additional reason that we have a subject who was healthy and void of cancer when he went to work in 1961 ; the condition which ultimately killed him clearly arose out of his employment; there was no evidence that Parker was, in fact, exposed to any other cancer-producing cause, such as x-ray machines, severe sunlight, or physical trauma. Yet, because the medical experts refused to testify that the cancer was “probably” caused by the radioactivity to which the petitioner was exposed, the Court cancels out and holds for naught the verdict of the jury which is supported by a myriad of probative facts. The Court admits that “probability” or “reasonable probability” can be based upon the evidence as a whole. Yet, in spite of the fact that radiation can cause cancer; the fact that Parker was exposed to radiation and no other cancer-producing cause and the fact that cancer resulted, the Court holds that such proof does not measure up to the standard of proximate causation the law requires to impose liability under the Workmen’s Compensation Act. The Court seems to rely heavily upon the result reached in Insurance Co. of North America v. Myers, 411 S.W.2d 710 (Tex.Sup., 1967), to support its holding that causal connection has not been shown sufficiently to take the case out of the realm of mere speculation and conjecture. The essential question in a cancer case is no different than in any other type of case. I mean by this that the essential question here is whether, from the evidence, it is reasonably probable *51that Parker’s cancer was caused by the radiation to which he was exposed while working.
This Court said in Myers: “Reasonable probability, in turn, is determinable by consideration of the substance of the testimony of the expert witness and does not turn on semantics or on the use by the witness of any particular term or phrase.” This rule was announced in a cancer case. There is no statement in the opinion which indicates any thought that the rule could never have application under any factual situation where cancer resulted. The opinion in Myers does not restrict the rule’s application to physical conditions other than cancer. Therefore, I think the Court is failing to recognize that a factual situation is presented here which brings the rule into play. It would unduly lengthen this opinion to recite the evidence as a whole which the jury considered in reaching its conclusion that the proof of exposure to radiation met the standard of proximate causation with sufficient certainty to impose liability upon the insurance carrier of Parker’s employer. To hold otherwise is to effectively remove injuries which require medical testimony to substantiate causation from the common law of tort. It is also an impediment of the present law in Texas and the majority of American- jurisdictions. Atkinson v. United States Fidelity and Guaranty Co., 235 S.W.2d 509 (Tex.Civ. App. — San Antonio 1950, writ ref’d n. r. e.); Galveston H & S A Ry. Co. v. Harris, 172 S.W. 1129 (Tex.Civ.App. — San Antonio 1915, err. ref’d); Galveston H & S A Ry. Co. v. Powers, 101 Tex. 161, 105 S.W. 491 (1907). See also Besner v. Walter Kidde Nuclear Laboratory, 24 A.D.2d 1045, 265 N.Y.S.2d 312 (1965); Custer v. Higgins Industries, Inc., 24 So.2d 511 (La.App.1946); Daly v. Bergstedt, 267 Minn. 244, 126 N.W.2d 242 (1964); McCann Steel Co. v. Carney, 192 Tenn. 94, 237 S.W.2d 942 (1951); Show v. Owl Drug Co., 40 P.2d 588 (Cal.1935); Smith v. Young, 119 Ohio App. 176, 197 N.E.2d 835 (1963); Dept. of Labor and Atomic Energy Commission, Workmen’s Compensation and Radiation Injury, Vol. II (U.S. Gov’t Printing Off., 1965). Even more significantly, the effect of such a judgment is to make recovery impossible in areas of medical knowledge that are not susceptible to assertions of “probability” from sophisticated and professionally dubious scientists.
The carrier’s contention that since the medical experts failed to say that it was at least reasonably probable that the injuries sustained by Parker while at work were a precipitating cause of the resulting cancer should be rejected. The evidence in this case presented a perfect picture which afforded a basis for the trier of the facts to construe the testimony of the doctors as supportive of the claim of Parker on the issue of causal connection. Necessarily, the Court must recognize that we are to view the evidence as a whole in determining whether or not Parker sustained an injury, as defined in the Court’s charge. We are not to isolate the testimony of the doctors, but must determine the effect of such testimony upon other evi-dentiary proof in the case.
If there is some evidence of probative force to support the finding of the jury, then the judgment of the trial court entered upon the verdict must stand.
The trial court, in its charge defined “injury” as being “damage or harm to the physical structure of the body and such diseases or infection as naturally result therefrom * * Parker, in my opinion, has discharged the burden of proof thus placed upon him.
The judgment of the Court of Civil Appeals should be reversed and that of the trial court affirmed.