Traders & General Ins. Co. v. Reed

• Citation: 376 S.W.2d 591
• Decision Date: 05 March 1964
• Docket Number: No. 34,34
• Parties: TRADERS & GENERAL INSURANCE COMPANY, Appellant, v. M. Z. REED, Appellee.
• Court: Court of Appeals of Texas. Court of Civil Appeals of Texas

Page 591

376 S.W.2d 591

TRADERS & GENERAL INSURANCE COMPANY, Appellant, v. M. Z. REED, Appellee.

No. 34.

Court of Civil Appeals of Texas, Corpus Christi.

March 5, 1964.

Rehearing Denied March 19, 1964.

James Greenwood III, of Vinson, Elkins, Weems & Searls, Houston, for appellant.

Robert L. Steely, of Hill, Brown, Kronzer, Abraham, Watkins & Steely, Houston, for appellee.

GREEN, Chief Justice.

This appeal is from a judgment for total and permanent disability plus recovery of $1,168.00 unpaid medical bills in a workman's compensation case. Appellee was injured March 26, 1961, which working on a drilling rig. A cat line raising three joints of pipe to the top of the derrick became fouled in a rapidly rotating cathead and broke, causing appellee to be struck in the back by steel tongs weighing approximately 250 pounds and to be knocked to the floor of the derrick. There he was repeatedly struck many times by a metal chain and steel cable attached to the rotating cathead before other employees could shut off the power and remove him. He suffered severe injuries, from which he was hospitalized for over 100 days. According to his testimony at the time of his trial over two years later, he had not worked in gainful employment since the accident.

It was stipulated at the trial that for fifty-eight weeks after the injury, appellant paid appellee $35.00 per week compensation for his injuries, and paid $1,159.50 medical bills and expenses in addition to the unpaid bills as found by the jury verdict.

The trial was held in May, 1963, by which time appellee had recovered from the injuries to his body with the exception, according to Dr. Martin Towler, a neuropsychiatrist who had been treating appellee since July, 1961, that he still suffered from an injury to the perineal nerve in his left leg, causing what was designated as a foot drop and consequential limp. The principal cause of appellee's present disability, according to Dr. Towler, was a depression, a real, existing mental disease resulting from the accidental injury of March 26, 1961. He testified that appellee got better perodically and appeared to be on the verge of recovery, and then suffered relapses. He said that appellee would eventually be able to work again, but he did not know how long his depression would last, and that the disability resulting from this condition would be of indefinite duration.

There was testimony from doctors placed on the stand by appellant to the effect that appellee, at the time of the trial, had no disability ability at all. The testimony of Dr. Edmond Fountain and Dr. Edward T. Smith, appellant's witnesses, supported its position that, after the first few months following the accident, appellee's disability was only partial and was temporary.

Thus it became a matter for the jury to decide the extent and duration of appellee's disability, if any. Appellant does not question the sufficiency of the evidence to support the findings of the jury. This appeal is based entirely on alleged error of the trial court in excluding two items of evidence offered by appellant.

Appellant's first complaint is that it was not permitted to prove by appellee that he was receiving $105.00 fer month social security disability payments as the result of his injuries. Appellant's other point is based on the exclusion from evidence of three sheets of paper from the medical files of appellee's medical witness, Dr. Martin Towler, these sheets being (1) a letter from the Social Security Administration addressed to appellee requesting that he obtain a medical report from Dr. Towler; (2) a government form to be signed by appellee authorizing his doctor to release records to the Social Security Administration, and instructing the physician as to the information desired; and (3) the blank form of a medical report. Except for appellee's name, address, date of birth and Social Security number, these papers, the blanks of which had not been filed in, contained no facts, no medical opinions and no information concerning appellee or his injuries.

Appellee objected to the introduction of such evidence on the grounds that it was immaterial and irrelevant to any issue in the case, and that it constituted testimony of payment from a collateral source. Such objection was sustained. We find that no error was committed by the trial court in excluding this offered testimony, and that the judgment should be affirmed.

Under the callateral source rule invoked by appellee in his objection to all testimony concerning the application for and payments of social security disability benefits, the fact that an injured person receives from a collateral source payments which may have some tendency to mitigate the consequences of the injury which he otherwise would have suffered may not be taken into consideration in assessing the damages or other recovery to which the claimant may be entitled. See annotation in 75 A.L.R.2d 885 et seq.; 25 C.J.S. Damages Sec. 99, page 647.

It is undisputed that the fact that appellee, after the payments which appellant made to him for fifty-eight weeks were discontinued, applied to the government for social swcurity disability benefits, and that the government recognized the validity of his claim and made such payments to him would not ordinarily be admissible to mitigate the damages or affect his right of recovery. Appellant concedes that the collateral source rule prohibiting generally evidence of collateral payments from other sources, such as insurance, pension or retirement funds, employee benefit accounts, social security or old age assistance, etc., has been applied in numerous Texas cases to exclude testimony such as offered here. St. Louis & S. F. Ry. Co. v. Clifford, Tex.Civ.App., 148 S.W. 1163, writ ref.; Graves v. Poe, Tex.Civ.App., 118 S.W.2d 969, writ dis.; Texas Cities Gas Co. v. Dickens, Tex.Civ.App., 156 S.W.2d 1010, aff'd., 140 Tex. 433, 168 S.W.2d...