Court Opinion

ID: 9683290
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 13:26:04.893646+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:46.908025
License: Public Domain

ESQUIVEL, Justice,
dissenting.
In my opinion, the controlling issue in this case is whether hearsay statements, which were the only evidence offered to prove that Middleman sustained an accidental injury in the scope of his employment, were admissible. I conclude that the trial court erred in admitting them.
The operative facts are as follows: Middleman suffered from a heart condition and had been under medication to prevent blood-clotting for about a year prior to his death. He died on August 14, 1970, as a result of a pulmonary embolism due to phle-bothrombosis of leg veins. On August 11, 1970, he was driven to his place of employment by appellee at approximately 8:15 a.m. At approximately 8:50 a.m., a coworker, Rachael Benevides, found him inside the store sitting in a customer chair rubbing his right leg, thigh and knee with both hands. He was unable to work properly throughout the day and limped around the store until 4:00 p.m., when Benevides drove him home. He spent a restless night due to pain in his leg. The following day appellee took him to a doctor and he was admitted to the hospital after being diagnosed to have a hematoma on the thigh. He died two days later.
The evidence complained of is a portion of the testimony of Benevides and of appel-lee. Benevides was permitted to testify that in answer to her inquiry if there was something wrong when she found him rubbing his leg, Middleman answered: “Yes, I must have hurt my leg in the stockroom.” Appellee was permitted to testify that when he arrived at home that afternoon, Middleman told her, “I bumped and hurt my leg” and that he had hit it against a protruding box in the storeroom. Appellee was further permitted to testify that she had told Middleman’s employer, Mr. Katz, the next day after the funeral, that Middleman “... had bumped his leg against a box at the store and the doctor said he had a broken blood vessel.”
The contention of appellant is that none of this testimony was admissible as evidence as an exception to the hearsay rule because there is no independent proof of the incident or occurrence to which the statements relate. I agree. For declarations to be admissible in evidence as part of the res gestae they must be made in connection with an act proven; there must be evidence of an act itself admissible in the ease independently of the declaration that accompanies it. See Hartford Accident & Indemnity Co. v. Hale, 400 S.W.2d 310, 311 (Tex.1966); Truck Insurance Exchange v. Michling, 364 S.W.2d 172, 175 (Tex.1963). *190Evidence which establishes only that the event could have occurred does not satisfy the requirement; it must be sufficient to support a finding that it did occur. Hartford Accident & Indemnity Co. v. Hale, supra.
The competent evidence having any bearing on Middleman’s injury, in my opinion, is as follows: When Middleman left home for work with appellee he was perfectly normal and did not bump himself getting out of the car or upon entering the building where he was employed. There is a close proximity between the time Middleman entered the building uninjured and perfectly normal and the time Benevides found him rubbing his leg. The statements concerning his injury which Benevides was permitted to testify to were made a few minutes after he entered the building, and, were, that he had injured and that he must have bumped his leg in the storeroom. There was testimony that the stockroom was filled with cartons of shoes. An examination of Middleman by the doctor revealed a hematoma.
There is nothing in the above evidence, other than Middleman’s statements to Benevides, even tending to prove that Middleman sustained an injury by bumping into a box or carton of shoes in the stockroom, or any other object in the stockroom for that matter, except that he arrived at work in a perfectly normal manner and some thirty minutes later was seen rubbing his leg and later diagnosed as having received an injury which could have been caused in that manner. This is not enough. The statements made to Benevides were therefore not admissible in evidence as part of the res gestae. I apply the same reasoning and conclusion to the declaration made by Middleman to appellee.
For the stated reasons, I respectfully dissent.