Copelin v. Reed Tool Co.
| Decision Date | 05 March 1980 |
| Docket Number | No. A2290,A2290 |
| Citation | 596 S.W.2d 302 |
| Parties | Judy A. COPELIN, Appellant, v. REED TOOL COMPANY, Appellee. (14th Dist.) |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
Robert D. McPherson, Houston, for appellant.
Charles W. Hurd, III, Randell C. Roberts, Fulbright & Jaworski, Houston, for appellee.
Before J. CURTISS BROWN, C. J., and MILLER and PAUL PRESSLER, JJ.
This is an appeal from a summary judgment against appellant who sought damages for loss of consortium.
George Copelin, appellant's husband, was injured on January 4, 1979 while working in the "course of his employment," as that term is used in Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann. art. § 8306 (Vernon 1967). Appellant brought suit alleging that appellee's willful misconduct or gross negligence caused severe brain damage to appellant's husband leaving him in a coma and resulting in appellant's loss of her husband's consortium. The parties stipulated that at the time of the accident, 1) appellee was a subscriber to workers' compensation insurance as provided under the Workers' Compensation Act (the Act), 2) appellant's husband was an employee of appellee, and 3) appellant's husband was in the course of his employment with appellee. Based on these stipulations, appellee filed a Motion for Summary Judgment, claiming that since Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann. art. 8306 § 3 (Vernon 1967) barred appellant's husband from bringing a negligence action against appellee, appellant's claim for consortium (being derivative of her husband's action) was likewise barred, and that there was no material issue of fact to be decided. The trial court granted appellee's motion.
Appellant contends that her petition did state a cause of action and that there were disputed issues of fact. First, appellant claims that her husband's injury was caused by appellee's "intentional misconduct." While the words "intentional misconduct" need not be construed to mean appellee intentionally injured appellant's husband, that appears to be the construction given to them by both parties in their briefs, stipulations, and oral arguments. The Texas Supreme Court, in ruling on the constitutionality of the Workers' Compensation Act, has said:
Here the character of injuries, or wrongs, dealt with by the Act becomes important. Notwithstanding the breadth of some of its terms, its evident purpose was to confine its operation to only accidental injuries, and its scope is to be so limited. Its emergency clause declares its aim to be the protection by an adequate law of the rights of employees injured in "industrial accidents," and the beneficiaries of such employees as may be killed "in such accidents." The Bill of Rights, Section 13, Article I of the Constitution provides that "every person for an injury done him, in his lands, goods, person or reputation, shall have remedy by due course of law"; that is, the right of redress in the courts of the land in accordance with the law's administration. It is therefore not to be doubted that the Legislature is without the power to deny the citizen the right to resort to the courts for the redress of any intentional injury to his person by another. Such a cause of action may be said to be protected by the Constitution and could not be taken away; nor could the use of the courts for its enforcement be destroyed. This Act does not affect the right of redress for that class of wrongs. The injuries or wrongs, with which it deals are accidental injuries or wrongs. What we know and denominate as the cause of action arising from an accidental injury is purely the creation of the common law. It is a common law liability founded upon the common law doctrine of negligence; and but for the rule of the common law, sometimes also expressed in statutes, there would be no liability for such an injury, and hence no cause of action for it.
Middleton v. Texas Power & Light Co., 108 Tex. 96, 185 S.W. 556, 560 (1916). Accord Porter v. Downing, 578 S.W.2d 460 (Tex.Civ.App. Texarkana 1979, writ ref'd n.r.e.).
Consequently, if the injury suffered by appellant's husband was intentionally inflicted by appellee, her husband's resulting cause of action would not and could not be barred by §§ 3 or 3a of article 8306 of the Act, or any other legislative enactment, unless he elected to file a claim under the Act, thereby admitting that the claim was accidental. Thus, appellant's claim for loss of consortium, whether derivative of her husband's claim or not, cannot be barred by those sections of the Act. The question of whether there was intentional misconduct is, therefore, a material issue of fact.
Appellant also contends that even if her...
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Reed Tool Co. v. Copelin
...or her husband's acceptance of workers' compensation benefits. Reed Tool Co. v. Copelin, 610 S.W.2d 736 (Tex.1980) affirming 596 S.W.2d 302 (Tex.Civ.App.1980). On remand Reed Tool again moved for summary judgment, asserting that there was no genuine issue of material fact concerning intenti......
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...of the claims agent was obviously and openly the subject of the release.2 In a recent decision, Copelin v. Reed Tool Co., 596 S.W.2d 302, 304 (Tex.Civ.App., 1980), the Texas appellate court addressed a case bearing some factual similarity to our own. The Copelin Court also discussed the hol......
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Reed Tool Co. v. Copelin, B-9379
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