Court Opinion

ID: 9778113
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 20:33:27.702831+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:03.840894
License: Public Domain

MASSEY, Justice,
dissenting.
Had the claimant in this case continued to work for the company which was his employer at time of his injury, I probably would agree with the majority. However, by the tests appropriate to the determination of whether a jury finding of total incapacity is against the great weight and preponderance of the evidence in this case, a case where the claimant was able to and did secure employment by another, I have concluded that such finding was thus erroneous.
Of his own volition claimant changed jobs. In May of 1976 he went to work for a different employer. He was able to both secure and keep the new employment. Services performed differed only in degree of effort; both involved the performance of labor.
I quote from Texas Employers Insurance Association v. Smith, 374 S.W.2d 287, 294 (Tex.Civ.App.—Beaumont, 1963, no writ hist.), viz.:
“Defendant presents an able argument in support of its position, and relies heavily upon Texas Employers Ins. Ass’n v. Moran, Tex.Civ.App., 261 S.W.2d 855, and Texas Employers Ins. Ass’n v. Vineyard, Tex.Civ.App., 316 S.W.2d 156. In each of these cases, the findings of total and permanent disability were found by the Court of Civil Appeals to be against the great weight and preponderance of the evidence. Also, in each of these cases, the plaintiffs had been able to obtain as well as retain employment. In the present case at bar, the plaintiff had stayed on the job with the same employer, and therefore had not passed a pre-employment examination, and being on the same job, had been able to get those following him on the next shift to perform some of the tasks required of him which he testified he could not do. The testimony of Dr. John Albert Brown that he would not pass the plaintiff for employment, together with the other testimony, raised an issue for the jury to determine, as to whether the plaintiff was physically able to obtain employment.” (Emphasis ours.)
Indemnity Insurance Co. of North America v. Cady, 356 S.W.2d 323 (Tex.Civ.App.—San Antonio, 1962, no writ hist.) was a case wherein the court, by an opinion of Associate Justice Pope, held that by appropriate tests a judgment for total and permanent disability based upon the jury finding of total incapacity should not be upheld on appeal because, among other things, he was able to secure employment from several employers other than that by whom he had been employed when he was injured after the date on which he was injured (apparently the date on which the jury found his period of total incapacity to have begun.) In that case it was stated that an additional reason for reversal lay in the claimant’s work record following his injury, one indicative that it would probably not have been the work record following injury of one entitled to permanent total disability benefits. In the case presently under test we have the same kind of work record. The record shows no change in the hours claimant worked after as compared with those he had worked before the injury. Both before and following the supposed period of total incapacity the claimant put in a great deal of “overtime”.
Yfhile I am aware of the rule that one may be totally and permanently incapacitated although he works and receives wages, nevertheless the proof in its entirety can be so overwhelmingly against the finding that it is the court’s duty to order a new trial. In re King’s Estate, 150 Tex. 662, 244 S.W.2d 660 (1951). To pirate the words of Judge Pope in Cady, supra : While I do not say, as a matter of law, that the claimant in the case before us was not totally and permanently disabled; I do say that, as a matter of fact from all this record, he was not.
After claimant sustained his injury August 2, 1972 (date which the jury found to have been the beginning date of his perma*691nent total incapacity) claimant lost no time from his usual work. While he was merely “carried” the remainder of that particular day he appeared the next working day thereafter and lost no time and no credit for having worked. His condition resultant from the injury gradually worsened; indeed, from the evidence adduced on trial it is probable that claimant ultimately will become totally incapacitated. However, it was the finding of the jury that a period of permanent total incapacity began August 12, 1972. Continually, after August 12, 1972, the claimant continued to work regularly at labor, though he was in pain. The evidence was that he was “carried” by his fellow employees from day to day while he refrained from performing the strenuous duties to which he was accustomed. Claimant admitted the performance of light duties.
There was not any interruption because of injury or effects therefrom and claimant continued to perform some labor. May of 1976 — nearly four years after he was injured — claimant voluntarily quit his employment upon obtaining a job requiring labor-type services with a new employer at an increased salary. Although I deem the fact of increase in remuneration of minor importance claimant’s new employment did result in his earning nearly half-again as much as was being earned at the time he quit working for his former employer.
As already noticed, this new employment beginning May of 1976 persisted for approximately one year and to time of the trial from which there was appeal. For his new employer claimant’s work record continued to be exceptional. Not only did he work the usual number of hours of one in his field of endeavor but he habitually worked many hours “overtime”, even up to trial.
In the above there is demonstration that (during the time the jury considered him totally incapacitated, and, more specifically, in May of 1976) claimant has actually been able to “get and keep employment”. Even with consideration given all the other facts and circumstances placed in evidence and tending to support the jury’s finding that the claimant was totally incapacitated I am of the opinion that the finding was so contrary to the greater weight and preponderance of the evidence as to be clearly erroneous.
I would reverse the judgment and remand the case.