Texas Employers' Ins. Ass'n v. Tabor

• Decision Date: 19 May 1926
• Docket Number: (No. 630-4490.)<SMALL><SUP>*</SUP></SMALL&gt
• Citation: 283 S.W. 779
• Parties: TEXAS EMPLOYERS' INS. ASS'N v. TABOR.
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

283 S.W. 779

TEXAS EMPLOYERS' INS. ASS'N v. TABOR.

(No. 630-4490.)^*

Commission of Appeals of Texas, Section B.

May 19, 1926.

Error to Court of Civil Appeals of Eighth Supreme Judicial District.

Action by Jim Tabor against the Texas Employers' Insurance Association to set aside an award of the Industrial Accident Board denying plaintiff any relief. Judgment for plaintiff was affirmed by the Court of Civil Appeals (274 S. W. 309), and defendant brings error. Affirmed.

Hickman & Bateman, of Breckenridge, and Lawther, Pope, Leachman & Lawther, of Dallas, for plaintiff in error.

Will R. Saunders, of Breckenridge, for defendant in error.

SPEER, J.

This suit was brought by Jim Tabor against Texas Employers' Insurance Association to set aside an award of the Industrial Accident Board denying him any relief. It was alleged by the plaintiff that he was an employee of the Fulwiler Motor Company, which was a subscriber under the Workmen's Compensation Act, carrying a policy of insurance for the protection of its employees. There was a trial before a jury, resulting in a judgment for the plaintiff for $5,581.09. The insurance association appealed to the Court of Civil Appeals, where the judgment was affirmed. 274 S. W. 309. The writ of error granted the association challenges practically every question decided by the Court of Civil Appeals. We shall not discuss all the questions presented, since most of them were decided by the Court of Civil Appeals upon reasons satisfactory to us. The principal question involved, and the one upon which the writ of error is granted, is that "the Employers' Liability Act [Vernon's Ann. Civ. St. Supp. 1918, art. 5246 — 1 et seq.] does not cover employees (purported) employed in violation of the Penal Code or of the plain statutory provisions of the Employers' Liability Act itself." The point is that plaintiff in error contends Tabor was employed by the Fulwiler Motor Company to perform an act of labor on a Sunday in violation of our Penal Code 1911, art. 299. The only contract of hire between the Fulwiler Motor Company and Jim Tabor was one by which Tabor undertook to go in company with a Mr. Snaer to Eastland county to see a Mr. Myers and obtain from him payment for a certain truck which had been sold by the motor company to Myers as a member of the firm of Tabor & Myers, and, in the event of failure to collect, to retake possession of the truck. While he was in the act of attempting to carry out this employment, he received the injuries for which he sued, through the overturning of an automobile in which he and Snaer were riding. The trip to Eastland county was made, and the injuries of Tabor received, on Sunday. It may be conceded, for the purposes of this decision, that, if both parties to the contract of employment contemplated that the labor was to be performed on Sunday, such agreement was void as being contrary to public policy, and in violation of the penal statute forbidding such work on Sunday.

The Court of Civil Appeals overruled the contention of invalidity upon the reasoning that the breach of the Sunday law was not the efficient cause of, and did not contribute to his injuries. This may be a material inquiry in a negligence case, where the act through which the employee is injured happens to be in violation of some law. The question of proximate cause is of vital importance in negligence cases. Paragon Oil Syndicate v. Rhoades Drilling Co. (Tex. Com. App.) 277 S. W. 1036; 25 R. C. L. p. 1450, § 51. But the principle is not applicable to cases of contract. A contract which has for its purpose the violation of a law cannot be valid. It is void. The obligation of a contract is based upon the agreement of the parties, it is true, but it receives its binding force from the sanction of law. It is not every mutual agreement that makes a lawful contract. The law will not enforce an agreement to do that which the same law says...