Court Opinion

ID: 9644940
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 21:09:01.462244+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:20.345746
License: Public Domain

*480HECHT, Justice,
concurring.
This case presents a simple question: whether the evidence is factually and legally sufficient to support the verdict. The simple answer is yes. With this much of the majority opinion, and the denial of delay damages, I agree.
The majority, however, have made a very simple case very complicated by attempting to show that even if the evidence in support of the verdict were lacking, Mid-Continent would not be entitled to relief on appeal. So extended is this digression that it crowds out the real issue in the ease. What should be at most a fallback position is the bulk of the majority’s opinion, which neither party has briefed, and which is wholly unnecessary to a full resolution of the case.
The majority base their conclusion that Mid-Continent is not entitled to reversal, irrespective of any insufficiency of evidence, upon their determination that the jury was given an incorrect instruction. The deficiency the majority find in the jury charge is that it uses the word “windstorm” in place of the phrase “act of God” in instructing the jury that certain injuries are not in the course of employment. Under the Worker’s Compensation Act, an employee injured by act of God is not injured in the course of employment unless his duties subjected him to greater hazard from the occurrence than the general public. Art. 8309, § 1, Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann. (Vernon 1967). Substituting “windstorm” for “act of God” in instructing the jury as to this statutory provision assumes that a windstorm is an act of God. In this case, however, say the majority, “there may ... have been a windstorm but not an act of God.” Thus, they reason, even if the evidence compels the finding that the cause of Whatley’s injury was a windstorm, the same evidence nevertheless permits a finding that the cause was not an act of God. Inasmuch as Whatley can be denied recovery only if his injury was caused by an act of God and he does not fall within the statutory proviso, a finding favorable to Mid-Continent on the issue submitted does not bar Whatley from recovery.
The proposition that a windstorm is not an act of God is surely exceptional.1 Nevertheless, the majority say they are compelled to this view by the legal definitions of the two expressions applied to the facts of this case. . I am not at all convinced as a legal matter that “windstorm” means the same in property insurance cases as in compensation cases, but to avoid further complicating the matter, I assume the definitions the majority use are correct. Applying those definitions to this case, I cannot see how the jury could have found that Whatley’s injury was caused by a windstorm but not by an act of God.
Assuming the wind blew the limb off the tree onto the trailer, injuring Whatley, the majority contend that the wind might not be found to be an act of God for two reasons. The first is that there is evidence that the limb was rotten and might have fallen of its own weight without any wind. If the limb was not blown off but fell off, Whatley’s injury was not caused by the wind. However, the majority’s analysis assumes the limb did not fall off but was blown off. One cannot both assume the limb was blown off and wonder if it fell off. The second reason the majority give to explain how a windstorm is not an act of God is that Whatley’s employer should have known the limb was rotten and should not have parked the trailer beneath it. In other words, the majority say that if the wind blew the limb down but the employer was negligent, Whatley’s accident was caused by the wind but not by an act of God. Why the employer’s negligence affects an act of God but not a windstorm the majority do not explain.
The wind either blew the limb off the tree or it did not. If it did, Whatley’s injury was caused by windstorm even if Whatley’s employer should have known to move the trailer, the windstorm was an act of God, and Whatley cannot recover unless his work subjected him to greater hazard. If the wind did not blow the limb off the *481tree, Whatley’s injury was not caused by windstorm and Whatley is entitled to recover.2 If the evidence required the jury to find that Whatley was not injured in the course of employment under the instruction in the charge, Whatley is not entitled to recover under the statute and Mid-Continent is entitled to reversal.
Noting that Whatley both objected to the charge and requested additional instruction, and that Mid-Continent did neither, the majority then observe:
At this juncture, in order to obtain advantage from inferential rebuttal evidence favorable to it, Mid-Continent should have assumed the burden of curing the defect since the cure could inure only to its benefit.3 Having failed to do so, in the face of Whatley’s objection, unless the windstorm instruction as then submitted is the legal equivalent of an act of God instruction, Mid-Continent cannot thereafter complain that the jury finding is at odds with the evidence connecting Whatley’s injuries to an act of God.
The majority reject an argument Mid-Continent does not make. Mid-Continent’s point is not that the evidence compels a finding that Whatley’s injury was caused by an act of God; rather, Mid-Continent’s point is that the evidence compels a finding that Whatley’s injury was caused by windstorm. Even assuming that a windstorm is not an act of God under the circumstances of this case, the issue is still whether the evidence supports the verdict.
In Walters v. American States Insurance Co., 654 S.W.2d 423 (Tex.1983), a jury found that plaintiff was injured in the course of employment. On appeal, defendant argued that the evidence did not support the jury finding because the plaintiff’s injury fell within a statutory exclusion similar to the one involved in the present case. The jury had not been instructed as to the statutory exclusion. Although the defendant could not complain of the absence of a proper instruction in the charge because it had failed to object at trial, the defendant could nevertheless complain of the insufficiency of the evidence. The issue was not whether the evidence would have supported a finding favorable to the plaintiff had the jury been properly instructed, but rather, whether the evidence supported the jury’s answer to the issue put to them.
Walters ’ application to the present case is that even if the jury were improperly instructed as to “windstorm” instead of “act of God”, Mid-Continent is entitled to complain on appeal that the evidence does not support their finding as instructed. Mid-Continent does not and, because it did not object at trial, cannot object of error in the instruction. It may nevertheless urge reversal on insufficiency of the evidence. If the evidence were insufficient to support the verdict, the judgment would have to be reversed. Thus, the majority are incorrect in their discursive analysis.
*482I point out that the majority in effect disapprove the pattern jury charge, 2 State Bar of Texas, Texas Pattern Jury Charges 21.14 (1975), which the trial court followed here in submitting the instruction on windstorm. After this case, the only sure way to submit the statutory exclusion is in the words of the statute verbatim with act of God defined.
The supreme court has observed:
Trial judges often cannot recognize the appellate decisions that reverse them. This happens when appellate judges permit new theories to insinuate into the appellate process and then write about matters foreign to the trial proceedings.
Walters, 654 S.W.2d at 427. I suspect that the trial judge and counsel in this case will be hard put to recognize the reasoning upon which the majority rely to affirm the judgment in this case. I would dispose of the issue raised in the trial court and argued on appeal, and discourse no further. For this reason, I concur in the majority’s judgment, but not in their opinion.

. "The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going." John 3:8 (New International Version).

. If Whatley's injury was not caused by windstorm, it might have been caused by some other act of God, as a matter of logic. However, Mid-Continent does not make this argument, and there does not appear to be evidence to support it.

. I assume, although it is not entirely clear, that the majority do not intend, by this asignment of responsibility to Mid-Continent for curing the perceived defect in the charge, to suggest that Mid-Continent had the burden of proof as to the statutory exclusion. The burden of proving injury in the course of employment is upon the claimant. “Whenever an exclusion is raised by the evidence, the burden is on the claimant to negate the exclusion as part of his case." Walters, 654 S.W.2d at 429 (McGee, J., concurring); accord Traders & General Ins. Co. v. Ross, 263 S.W.2d 673, 675 (Tex.Civ.App. — Galveston 1953, writ refd); Texas Employers’ Ins. Ass’n v. Moy-ers, 69 S.W.2d 777, 779-780 (Tex.Civ.App. — Texarkana 1934, writ dism’d); see Weicher v. Ins. Co. of North Am., 434 S.W.2d 104 (Tex.1968); see also Texas Employers' Ins. Ass’n v. Gregory, 521 S.W.2d 898, 903 (Tex.Civ.App. — Houston [14th Dist.] ), rev’d on other grounds, 530 S.W.2d 105 (Tex. 1975); Liberty Mutual Ins. Co. v. Upton, 492 S.W.2d 623 (Tex.Civ.App. — Fort Worth 1973, no writ); Texas Employers Ins. Ass’n v. Monroe, 216 S.W.2d 659 (Tex.Civ.App. — Galveston 1948, writ refd n.r.e.).
The majority also appear to fault Mid-Continent for not pleading the statutory act of God exclusion, although they acknowledge that the exclusion is not an affirmative defense. In the charge, the exclusion is an inferential rebuttal issue. Walters, 654 S.W.2d at 429 (McGee, J., concurring); Transport Ins. Co. v. Liggins, 625 S.W.2d 780, 784 (Tex.Civ.App. — Fort Worth 1981, writ ref’d n.r.e.).