Court Opinion

ID: 9661640
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 22:45:27.691575+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:31.677276
License: Public Domain

PEDEN, Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. I would affirm the judgment of the trial court.
The majority opinion sustains the appellant’s second point of error, which states that there is no evidence that the appellee’s complaints were caused in whole or in part by a general injury. A “no evidence” point is a contention that the evidence, is legally insufficient, i. e., that there is no evidence of probative force to support the finding in *267question. In passing on the point we must consider only the evidence and the inferences tending to support the finding and disregard all evidence and inferences to the contrary. Garza v. Alviar, Tex., 395 S.W.2d 821.
Thus we may consider only that part of Dr. Skogland’s testimony wherein he stated that noises and ringing in the ear, dizziness, impairment of vision, easily becoming tired and inability to concentrate can be symptoms of a post-concussion syndrome; we must disregard that part of his medical testimony which was unfavorable to the ap-pellee.
Polasek testified that he was looking around a little glass porthole when it exploded and hit him in the eyes and head. He cut his nose and hit his head when he went back about twenty inches. He was not knocked down. He was semiconscious. He was taken to a hospital and his right eye was removed that night. He noticed that he had a problem with his arm, hand and finger in the hospital when he “came out from under that dope.”
When asked what bothers him other than the loss of his eye, Polasek said “Well — my hand hurts — these two fingers — then I get awful headaches; every time the weather changes my head swells up.” He didn’t tire on the job before the accident, but he does now. The finger problem makes it difficult to hold the heavy tools he works with.
I would hold that the appellee successfully passed the “no evidence” test in establishing that the blow probably caused symptoms, other than the loss of vision, resulting in general disability. I would permit the jury in this case to decide that the symptoms were causally connected with a general injury from the evidence adduced absent any expert medical testimony of “reasonable medical probability.” The onset of Polasek’s symptoms which gave rise to general disability was almost immediate. Not so in the cases involving cancer, Insurance Company of North America v. Myers, 411 S.W.2d 710 (Tex.Sup.1966) and Parker v. Employers Mutual Liability Insurance Co. of Wisconsin, 440 S.W.2d 43 (Tex.Sup.1969), or in the heart attack cases of Dotson v. Royal Indemnity Co., 427 S.W.2d 150 (Tex.Civ.App.1968, writ ref. n. r. e.) and Otis Elevator Co. v. Wood, 436 S.W.2d 324 (Tex.Sup.1968). Nor were Polasek’s symptoms of a nature difficult for laymen to causally connect as were those in the cases just mentioned.
Much of Polasek’s evidence as to his disability symptoms must be considered as directly resulting from the loss of his eye, and he offered no expert medical testimony to establish the causal connection between the explosion and the numbness in his fingers, but I would hold that Dr. Skog-land’s testimony that Polasek’s other symptoms can be those of a post-concussion syndrome constitutes some evidence that his disability was probably caused by the blow rather than by the loss of the eye.
I would also overrule the appellant’s other points of error.