Walters v. American States Ins. Co.

• Decision Date: 20 July 1983
• Docket Number: No. C-1536,C-1536
• Citation: 654 S.W.2d 423
• Parties: Pamela WALTERS et al., Petitioners, v. AMERICAN STATES INSURANCE COMPANY, Respondent.
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

Page 423

654 S.W.2d 423

Pamela WALTERS et al., Petitioners, v. AMERICAN STATES INSURANCE COMPANY, Respondent.

No. C-1536.

Supreme Court of Texas.

July 20, 1983.

Paul W. Pearson, Dallas, J. Thomas Sullivan, Santa Fe, N.M., for petitioners.

Strasburger & Price, Patrick F. McGowan and Rowland Foster, Dallas, for respondent.

POPE, Chief Justice.

Pamela Walters, as guardian and next friend of Ivan Robert Justice, instituted this claim for workers' compensation benefits against American States Insurance Company following the death of Justice's father, Ivan Michael Justice. The trial court rendered judgment for Walters based on the jury's finding that Justice received his fatal injuries in the course of his employment. The court of appeals reversed the judgment, holding there was no evidence to support the jury's verdict, and rendered judgment that Walters take nothing. 636 S.W.2d 794. We reverse the judgment of the court of appeals and remand to that court to consider the factual sufficiency of the evidence.

At the time of his death, Ivan Michael Justice was employed as an interior designer by Richard Lamport & Associates, Inc. On Saturday, June 11, 1977, Justice accompanied Lamport to meet a potential client at the Dallas Airport Marina Hotel. At 2:00 p.m., Justice and Lamport were found shot to death in a field near the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport. The Dallas County Medical Examiner's report concluded that Justice died as a result of "multiple 'distant' gunshot wounds to the back." The assailant has never been apprehended.

The trial court asked this simple special issue, which the jury answered in the affirmative:

Do you find from a preponderance of the evidence that Ivan Michael Justice received his fatal injury in the course of his employment, as that term has been defined in this charge with Richard Lamport & Associates, Inc.?

The trial court also gave this instruction:

"Injury in the Course of Employment" as that term is used in this charge, means any injury having to do with and originating in the work, business, trade or profession of the employer, received by an employee while engaged in or about the furtherance of the affairs or business of his employer, whether upon the employer's premises or elsewhere.

The defendant, American States, did not object to the issue, the instruction, or the burden of proof. American States did not request an instruction on that part of the Workers' Compensation Act that excludes coverage for an injury caused by the act of a third person intended to injure the employee because of reasons personal to him and not directed against him as an employee, or because of his employment. Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann. art. 8309, § 1. On appeal, defendant American States focused upon that provision. American States had no point in the court of appeals complaining of the special issue or the instruction. The question that was preserved and is now before us is whether the answer to the issue submitted has support in the evidence.

Walters contends that there was evidence to support the jury verdict. She also argues that she is entitled to a presumption. Unneeded presumptions should not be invoked. The evidence and inferences from the facts in this case were legally sufficient to support the jury finding.

Scott v. Millers Mutual Fire Insurance Co., 524 S.W.2d 285 (Tex.1975), was a case in which there was an absence of direct evidence of what an employee was doing at the time he received his injury. In Scott, as here, the jury found that the employee was injured in the course of his employment. The employee argued that he was entitled to a presumption. This court, after briefly discussing the arguments that we should indulge a presumption that would uphold the finding, said, "[P]etitioner has no need for a presumption to compel the jury to reach that conclusion." Id. at 288. We held, instead, that there were enough inferences from the facts proved. We wrote in Scott:

Our problem then is to determine whether the record contains evidence of probative value which, with the reasonable inferences therefrom, will support the jury's finding in response to Special Issue No. 3.

Id.

In Scott we cited two cases that supported our judgment. We wrote concerning American General Insurance Co. v. Jones, 152 Tex. 99, 255 S.W.2d 502 (1953):

Without adverting to any "presumption" as the intermediate court had done, we observed that the decedent was on the employer's premises during working hours and was traveling a route which under his employment he had been employed to travel, ....

Scott v. Millers Mutual Fire Insurance Co., 524 S.W.2d at 289. We also relied upon Elledge v. Great American Indemnity Co., 312 S.W.2d 722 (Tex.Civ.App.--Houston 1958), writ ref'd n.r.e. per curiam, 159 Tex. 288, 320 S.W.2d 328 (1959). That was an instance of a night watchman's unexplained death on the premises of his employer. Again, this court, without indulging a presumption, looked to the evidence and the circumstances, though unexplained, to conclude that the injuries were in the course of employment.

In cases of idiopathic falls on level surfaces, Texas courts have found no need to rely upon or create some kind of presumption. E.g., American General Insurance Co. v. Barrett, 300 S.W.2d 358 (Tex.Civ.App.-- Texarkana 1957, writ ref'd n.r.e.); General Insurance Corp. v. Wickersham, 235 S.W.2d 215 (Tex.Civ.App.--Fort Worth 1950, writ ref'd n.r.e.). We discussed and approved the Texas idiopathic cases in Texas Employers Insurance Association v. Page, 553 S.W.2d 98 (Tex.1977), without mention of any presumption.

Texas has upheld awards on the positional-risk theory in a wasp-sting case, Travelers Insurance Co. v. Williams, 378 S.W.2d 110 (Tex.Civ.App.--Amarillo 1964, writ ref'd n.r.e.); a lunatic assault case, Travelers Insurance Co. v. Hampton, 414 S.W.2d 712 (Tex.Civ.App.--Eastland 1967, writ ref'd n.r.e.); and an unexplained assault case, Casualty Reciprocal Exchange v. Johnson, 148 F.2d 228 (5th Cir.1945). In McLean's Case, 323 Mass. 35, 80 N.E.2d 40 (1948), a taxi driver was beaten from behind with a hammer, but not robbed. In the absence of any explanation for the assault or facts showing a personal or an occupational origin, the court awarded compensation because "employment brought him in contact with the risk that in fact caused his injuries." Id., 80 N.E.2d at 42.

Professor Larson in The Law of Workmen's Compensation discusses the state of the law in other jurisdictions in cases of assaults upon and deaths of employees for which no explanation appears. In section 11.33 Larson says:

Occasionally an assault occurs for which no explanation whatever appears, either because the assault was unwitnessed, or because, even with all the facts available, no one can figure out why the assault was committed. Nothing connects it with the victim privately; neither can it be shown to have had a specific employment origin. If the claimant is in fact exposed to that assault because he is discharging his duties at that time and place, there is no better reason here than in the unexplained-fall or death cases to deny an award merely because claimant cannot positively show that the assault was motivated by something connected with the work. Although the cases are more evenly divided on unexplained assaults than on unexplained falls or deaths, there is now a demonstrably larger body of authority for awarding compensation on these facts than for denying it.

1 A. Larson, The Law of Workmen's Compensation § 11.33 (1982).

Our most recent discussion of presumptions and inferences in connection with the unexplained death of an employee was in Deatherage v. International Insurance Co., 615 S.W.2d 181 (Tex.1981). We repeated in Deatherage what we said in Scott:

Mrs. Deatherage has no need for this presumption because she obtained a jury finding that Deatherage was injured in the course and scope of his employment. Nevertheless, we must determine whether there is more than a scintilla of evidence to support the jury finding.

615 S.W.2d at 183.

We hold in this case the same as we did in Farley v. M M Cattle Co., 529 S.W.2d 751 (Tex.1975). We first look to the rules relating to inferences. When we can draw reasonable inferences from the evidence, we avoid the need for presumptions. As stated in Farley, a number of inferences may be drawn from a single fact situation. Peveto v. Smith, 134 Tex. 308, 133 S.W.2d 572 (1939); Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad Co. v. Sanderson, 174 S.W.2d 646 (Tex.Civ.App.--Eastland 1943, writ ref'd w.o.m.). The simple question before the jury and before us is a question of logic--whether the jury, upon the basis of the facts proved, made a reasonable inferential leap or whether their logical leap was too far. The facts, proved reasonably and logically, support the jury finding.

The evidence was that Justice was the "right-hand man" of Lamport, the president of Richard Lamport & Associates, Inc. It was a usual practice for Justice to accompany the Lamport for discussions of interior design with prospective customers. Lamport told Justice on Friday to meet with him to discuss the mission the next day when they would meet the customer at the airport hotel. They left together to discuss the design of a restaurant with the customer. But for Lamport's order that Justice accompany him to the business conference, Justice would not have left town with Lamport on the Saturday of the deaths.

An unknown customer first called Lamport's office on Thursday and said that he wanted to see Lamport about a restaurant project. On Friday, Lamport's office again received a call from a customer who wanted to talk to Lamport about an interior design job for a restaurant. Lamport and Justice at that time were on a job in Abilene. On Friday night, Lamport himself received a call. Three times a customer called to speak to Lamport, not Justice. This record does not reveal that the person or persons calling knew anything about Justice....