Texas: Court Affirms $600,000 Judgment Against Non-Subscribing Employer

In a civil action against a non-subscribing employer, a Texas appellate court affirmed a judgment awarding the injured employee almost $300,000 in past medical expenses, $150,000 in past pain and mental anguish, and $150,000 in past physical impairment. The employee, a truck driver, sustained a back injury lifting a 175-pound frozen cow carcass. The employer contended on appeal that (1) the medical expenses awarded are not supported by legally sufficient evidence of causation, and (2) the employee was impermissibly awarded more damages than those actually paid or incurred. The appellate court ruled that the evidence of causation between the injury and back surgery was sufficient; any condition he had prior to the injury was asymptomatic. Records of the employee’s medical bills were admissible in spite of the fact that three providers would not be paid by the employee because he had assigned his potential recovery for medical expenses to the providers, who had in turn sold the accounts to a factoring company.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is the co-author of Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law (LexisNexis).

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance.

See Amigos Meat Distribs., L.P. v. Guzman, 2017 Tex. App. LEXIS 4350 (May 11, 2017)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 102.01.

Source: Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the nation’s leading authority on workers’ compensation law