Court Opinion

ID: 9858655
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 16:34:24.992257+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:55:23.603683
License: Public Domain

WILSON, Justice
(dissenting).
If this should be the only cause in which the question could arise, silent submission to my colleagues’ apparent aim toward a righteous result in an isolated case might be expedient. It is not such; and I think the holding sets a new snag to thwart the end of litigation.
This case may be viewed properly only by excising from the opinion the averments in the motion, for no attempt was made to prove them. These unproved allegations, it is thought, prompted the action of the majority. Plaintiff testified on the motion. His only competent and admissible evidence was that (a) none of the doctors who treated him just before trial told him he needed *261a second operation, (b) but he knew personally he did need another operation; (c) that an incision was made on the back eight months after trial by a surgeon who had made a myelogram; (d) that by “seeing it in a mirror” plaintiff could tell this incision was made at the same location as that for the first operation before trial. This doctor did not testify; his testimony was not tendered. For this omission no explanation is suggested. Claimant testified pain had continued, and the second operation was “still a hinder” to his complete recovery. His medical testimony at trial on the merits had been that he was permanently incapacitated.
There is no evidence on the new trial hearing suggesting the slightest causal connection between the original injury and the second operation. No circumstance was tendered to the trial court indicating the first pre-trial laminectomy was imperfect. No one intimated to the judge (whose discretion we must say was abused) the reason an uncalled surgeon deemed his work necessary. No witness told the trial judge its result. Silence met the question of what condition the operation sought to correct. The trial court could do no more than guess what the doctor would testify to if called, and we can guess no better.
The court was not simply not required'— it was not authorized — to grant a new trial on newly discovered evidence which was merely cumulative. Much less was there abuse of his discretion. The new evidence presented could only go to the issue of incapacity. On the trial, plaintiff’s evidence was that he suffered pain, he couldn’t work, couldn’t stoop or lift, couldn’t stand for any length of time, and his condition was growing worse instead of better. In the opinion of his medical witness who performed the first operation, as given on the trial, he could not do the tasks he was performing when injured. This condition, he said, was permanent; claimant could not do manual labor; his permanent incapacity for manual work was 50% to 75%; the doctor would not “pass him for doing manual work”. Defendant’s medical opinion evidence was that he was disabled, but only to the extent of 15% to 20%. The jury found plaintiff had sustained more than a year’s total incapacity, with partial incapacity for about 1½ years beyond.
The effect of plaintiff’s new evidence was simply that his incapacity was of greater duration or extent than found by the jury under evidence at the trial which would have supported more favorable findings.
This is not like the Evans case, said to be controlling; there an entirely new, unknown, different and unknowable cause of incapacity was discovered and proved. Removal of an eyeball revealed concealed cancer as the cause. The only similarity in the cases is a post-trial operation. Evans was never meant to go this far. This court is not required or authorized to pass on whether discretion would have been abused if the facts alleged had been proved.
There is no more reason, as a matter of public policy, for setting aside this judgment for evidence of post-trial physical condition which might increase recovery, than for such action where the evidence would reduce it. See Ham v. Taylor, 22 Tex. 225; Missouri, K. & T. R. Co. of Texas v. Gist, 31 Tex.Civ.App. 662, 73 S.W. 857, 859, writ ref.; St. Louis S. W. R. Co. v. Turner, Tex.Civ.App., 225 S.W. 383, 389, writ ref.; Gulf, C. & S. F. R. Co. v. Brown, 16 Tex.Civ.App. 93, 40 S.W. 608, writ dis.; Adams v. Eddy, Tex.Civ.App., 29 S.W. 180; Texas Motor Coaches v. McKinney, Tex.Civ.App., 186 S.W.2d 714, 717; 31 Tex.Jur. Sec. 97, p. 110.
This dissent springs from what is believed to be a peril that the decision will yield fraud and uncertainty in cases yet unforeseen, but now foreseeable. There is no suggestion of bad faith in the present case; it is one of absence of newly discovered evidence. The unscrupulous may well use our holding to compel new trials, or to create for the trial judge additional quandary and dilemma. I think it wrong to reverse on the showing made.