## Facts

- Loyal Grant Price suffered a back injury during the course of his employment and sought workers’ compensation benefits, asserting total and permanent incapacity.
- The insurance carrier, Texas Employers’ Insurance Association (TEIA), disputed the extent and duration of incapacity, contending any disability was partial and temporary or attributable to other conditions.
- Medical testimony conflicted:
  - Price’s physician estimated partial permanent disability (about 20%) after surgery and stated the incapacity was permanent but not total.
  - The same physician also testified Price should not return to his trade.
- Price testified he could not work without pain, his condition was worsening, and he wore a physician-fitted back brace.
- A jury found Price’s injury was work-related and resulted in total and permanent incapacity; the trial court rendered a lump-sum judgment for Price.
- TEIA sought a new trial, alleging the verdict was against the great weight of the evidence and that jury misconduct occurred.
- During deliberations, a juror described personal experiences with union and company hiring practices for workers with back injuries, including asserted physical-exam requirements and that Price would not be employable by certain named companies; the juror used these assertions to persuade others that Price was totally and permanently disabled.

## Issues

1. Whether the finding of total and permanent incapacity was so against the great weight and preponderance of the evidence as to be clearly wrong and unjust.
2. Whether a juror’s use of specific personal experience about hiring practices, presented as factual support for unemployability, constituted material misconduct that probably caused injury to TEIA and required a new trial.

## Decision

- The court held the evidence was sufficient to support the jury’s finding of total and permanent incapacity and that the finding was not against the great weight and preponderance of the evidence.
- The court held reversible jury misconduct occurred when a juror injected specific extra-record “facts” from personal experience about employability and hiring practices to influence the verdict on a disputed, material issue.
- Because the extent of incapacity was a close, central issue and the extra-record assertions likely affected the verdict, the court reversed the judgment and remanded for a new trial.

## Legal Principles

- Conflicts between lay testimony and expert opinion on incapacity are for the jury to resolve; a claimant’s testimony about pain and inability to work can support a total-disability finding if not contrary to the great weight and preponderance of the evidence.
- Jurors may use general life experience to evaluate evidence, but may not introduce specific personal experiences as if they were evidence to persuade other jurors on a material, disputed issue.
- A new trial is required when jury misconduct is material and probably resulted in harm to the complaining party, particularly where the misconduct supplies extra-record information going directly to a contested, outcome-determinative question.

## Conclusion

Although the record contained legally sufficient support for the jury’s total-and-permanent-incapacity finding, the verdict was set aside because a juror improperly supplied extra-record, experience-based assertions about hiring and employability to influence deliberations on a close, material issue; the case was reversed and remanded for a new trial.


Tex. Emp’rs Ins. Ass’n v. Price, 336 S.W.2d 304 (Tex. Civ. App.—Eastland 1960)