Court Opinion

ID: 9647913
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 13:54:58.26788+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:23:59.126109
License: Public Domain

ON REHEARING
Sanchez and TEIA each has filed a motion for rehearing. Sanchez’s motion presents nothing not addressed in our original opinion. However, TEIA challenges our severance, reversal and remand of Sanchez’s claim for nursing services by contentions which, although not heretofore advanced, will be addressed.
Sanchez’s claim for nursing services was conditionally submitted to the jury on the basis of these issues:
SPECIAL ISSUE NO. 1
Did Julia 0. Sanchez receive an injury on or about May 26, 1977?
ANSWER “YES” OR “NO.”
ANSWER: Yes
* * * * * *
If you have answered Special Issue No. 1 “Yes,” then answer Special Issue No. 11.
SPECIAL ISSUE NO. 11
Do you find from a preponderance of the evidence that nursing services were reasonably required as a result of such injury, if any?
ANSWER “THEY WERE REQUIRED” OR “THEY WERE NOT REQUIRED.”
ANSWER: They were required
If you have answered Special Issue No. 11 “They were required” then answer Special Issue No. 12; otherwise, do not Answer Special Issue No. 12.
SPECIAL ISSUE NO. 12
Do you find from a preponderance of the evidence that the Defendant, Texas Employers’ Insurance Association failed to furnish within a reasonable time such nursing services reasonably required as a result of such injury?
ANSWER “WE DO” OR “WE DO NOT.”
ANSWER: We do not
If you have answered Special Issue No. 12 “We do,” then answer Special Issue No. 13; otherwise do not answer.
SPECIAL ISSUE NO. 13
What do you find from a preponderance of the evidence to be reasonable costs of the nursing services rendered the Plaintiff, Julia 0. Sanchez by Mrs. Bessie Ovalle?
ANSWER IN DOLLARS AND CENTS, IF ANY.
ANSWER: _
Neither litigant voiced an objection to the trial court that the issues were conditionally submitted, nor complained of the court’s charge when the appeal was submitted to this Court.
Now, TEIA contends, in the first instance, that the jury’s answer to issue no. 12 is merely a failure to find and simply means that Sanchez failed to persuade the jury of the fact by a preponderance of the evidence. Therefore, TEIA submits, the answer is not required to be supported by affirmative evidence, albeit there is abundant evidence to support the failure to find.
*843The failure to find circumstance articulated in, for example, Lovato v. Ranger Ins. Co., 597 S.W.2d 34 (Tex.Civ.App.—Amarillo 1980, writ ref’d n.r.e.), by marginal notes 1 and 2 at 36, is inapplicable here, for the court required, by its specific instruction, that the jury’s answer to special issue no. 12, among others, “must be based upon a preponderance of the evidence . . . . ” Hence, we must view the answer as a finding; but, whether the answer is a failure to find or is a negative finding is of no import under this record. When Sanchez urged, in her sixth point of error, that the finding is against the great weight and preponderance of the evidence, we were compelled to consider and weigh all of the evidence, including that which TEIA originally argued abundantly supported the answer. Traylor v. Goulding, supra, at 945. Even though we determined from a review of all the evidence that it conclusively shows TEIA did furnish the nursing services accorded Sanchez by Bessie Ovalle for which there is evidence to ascertain the reasonable cost thereof, a determination we adhere to, we could order only a partial reversal and remand under Sanchez’s point of error. Calvert, “No evidence” and “Insufficient Evidence” Points of Error, 38 Tex.L.Rev. 361, 369 (1960).
Second, TEIA contends that if the record conclusively shows the fact inquired about in issue no. 12, or even if the answer is against the great weight and preponderance of the evidence, there is no basis for reversal of the take-nothing judgment with respect to nursing services. This appertains, TEIA now argues, because under the 1973 amendment of the medical services provisions of the Texas Workers’ Compensation Act — Texas Revised Civil Statutes Annotated Article 8306 § 7 (Vernon Supp. 1980-1981) — the inquiry is neither a controlling nor a material issue and, thereby, must be ignored.
It is true that respectable authority, which had recommended the submission of a medical care issue similar in nature to issue no. 12 under the pre-amendment statute, opines that the issue need not be submitted after the 1973 amendment. 2 State Bar of Texas, Texas Pattern Jury Charges, PJC 23.09 (1970; 1976 Cumulative Supp.). But that does not determine the immateriality of the issue as belatedly raised by TEIA on motion for rehearing.
Although, as we discovered by an independent search in considering the motions for rehearing, TEIA did object to the submission of issue no. 12 on the ground, inter alia, that it was immaterial, TEIA did not preserve the present complaint for our consideration on original submission by a cross-point. Tex.R.Civ.P. 420. The presumption, then, is that TEIA acquiesced in the court’s overruling of its objection. DeBusk v. GufFee, 171 S.W.2d 194, 198 (Tex.Civ.App.—Eastland 1943, no writ). Conformably, the question of immateriality of the issue was not suggested in any of TEIA’s three counterpoints by which TEIA attempted to show that none of Sanchez’s six points of error were valid.
On original submission, the only question which respect to issue no. 12 was the evidential support for the jury’s answer. It is only after we sustained Sanchez’s attack on the evidential support for the answer that TEIA contends the issue is immaterial. Under these circumstances, the adjudication of the point of error on the basis presented originally was justified, and TEIA’s unpreserved objection to its materiality comes too late for attention when made for the first time in TEIA’s motion for rehearing. Sanders v. Davila, 550 S.W.2d 709, 713 (Tex.Civ.App.—Amarillo), writ ref’d n. r. e. per curiam, 557 S.W.2d 770 (Tex.1977).
Last, TEIA asserts that, aside from its foregoing contentions, Sanchez’s claim for nursing services is otherwise foreclosed. This results, TEIA contends, because when issue no. 13 was conditionally submitted and unanswered pursuant to the court’s instructions without objection by Sanchez, who thereby waived the right to have the issue answered by the jury, there is a deemed finding to issue no. 13 in support of the trial court’s take-nothing judgment. The rule upon which TEIA relies was applied in Bay Petroleum Corporation v. Crumpler, 372 S.W.2d 318, 320 (Tex.1963), and in other cases cited by TEIA.
*844The rule of Crumpler applies when a finding on a controlling issue is prevented by an improper conditional submission without objection or request by the party who is entitled to and should insist upon a jury finding thereon. Strauss v. LaMark, 366 S.W.2d 555, 557 (Tex.1963). However, the rule has no application where the subordinate issue is properly submitted on condition. 3 R. McDonald, Texas Civil Practice § 12.36.7 (rev. 1970). The conditional submission of issues is authorized by the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure, Strauss v. La-Mark, supra, at 558, and the conditional submission of medical care issues such as were submitted here have been approved. See, e. g., 2 State Bar of Texas, Texas Pattern Jury Charges, PJC 23.09 (1970). In the event of a proper conditional submission of issues, there is no right to insist on an unconditional submission and if, as here, the jury’s finding on the dominant issue is against the weight and preponderance of the evidence, there is no presumption of a deemed finding on the unanswered subordinate issue(s). Strauss v. LaMark, supra, at 558. This is the principle we applied.
For these reasons, we are not persuaded by the motions for rehearing to alter our original judgment. The motions for rehearing are overruled.