## Facts

- Hugo Michling operated a bulldozer for his employer and left home on April 12, 1958 apparently in good health.
- He returned home around 3:30 p.m.; his wife observed he stumbled, looked pale, and complained his head hurt badly.
- His wife testified that he told her a bulldozer incident occurred at work and that he hit his head on an iron bar across the seat when it slipped.
- Michling was hospitalized and died on May 11, 1958.
- A physician attributed death to a cerebral hemorrhage from a congenital blood-vessel weakness; the hemorrhage could have been precipitated by a cough, strain, a blow to the head, or could have occurred spontaneously.
- The wife’s account of her husband’s statements was the only evidence that any work accident occurred; there was no corroborating witness, record, or physical proof of the incident.

## Issues

1. Whether the decedent’s statements to his wife describing an on-the-job head injury were admissible as an excited utterance (*res gestae*) to prove a compensable workplace accident.
2. Whether an excited utterance may establish the existence and character of the alleged startling event when the event is otherwise unproven by independent evidence.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Texas reversed the judgment awarding death benefits and rendered judgment that the beneficiaries take nothing.
- The court held the wife’s testimony repeating the decedent’s account of a bulldozer accident was not admissible as an excited utterance because the underlying occurrence was not shown by evidence independent of the statement.
- Without the excluded hearsay, there was no competent evidence of an accidental injury in the course of employment.

## Legal Principles

- Liberal construction of workers’ compensation statutes does not alter ordinary rules of evidence in compensation litigation.
- For the excited utterance (*res gestae*) exception to apply, the statement must relate to an occurrence that is established by evidence other than the statement itself.
- An excited utterance cannot be used to bootstrap proof of the event that allegedly produced the excitement; hearsay cannot both create and describe the occurrence necessary for admissibility.

## Conclusion

The court denied workers’ compensation death benefits because the only proof of a workplace accident was the decedent’s hearsay statement to his wife, which did not qualify as an excited utterance absent independent evidence that the alleged accident occurred.


Truck Ins. Exch. v. Michling, 364 S.W.2d 172 (Tex. 1963)