Court of Appeals Reverses Judgment that Improperly Placed Burden of Proof on Carrier
A Texas court of appeals has reversed the judgment of a trial court that improperly placed the burden of proof on a workers’ compensation carrier to prove that a surviving spouse had abandoned a deceased worker without good cause prior to his death. The court remanded the case to the trial court for further proceedings.
The decision in Liberty Insurance Corporation v. Tarango (No. 11-15-00123-CV), decided October 20, 2016, followed the widow’s appeal from a decision of the Division of Workers’ Compensation in which a hearing officer specifically found that the widow abandoned the marriage for more than one year immediately preceding the employee’s death, without good cause, and that she was not an eligible beneficiary for death benefits. The appeals panel affirmed the hearing officer’s decision.
The trial court specifically placed the burden of proof on the issue of abandonment on the carrier. In addition, the trial court’s third conclusion of law was as follows: “Liberty Insurance Corporation did not prove by a preponderance of the evidence that Mary Ann Tarango abandoned her husband, Manuel “Benny” Tarango, within the meaning of 28 Tex. Admin. Code, Rule 132.3.” The court of appeals concluded that this was reversible error.
In Liberty’s second issue, it claims that the trial court improperly placed the burden on Liberty to prove that Mary Ann abandoned Benny. We agree. Section 410.303 of the Texas Labor Code provides that a party that seeks judicial review of an administrative decision by the Texas Division of Workers’ Compensation has the burden of proof by a preponderance of the evidence on the issue that the party is appealing. TEX. LAB. CODE ANN. § 410.303 (West 2015); see also LAB. § 410.302(b) (“A trial under this subchapter is limited to issues decided by the appeals panel and on which judicial review is sought. The pleadings must specifically set forth the determinations of the appeals panel by which the party is aggrieved.”); Morales v. Liberty Mut. Ins. Co., 241 S.W.3d 514, 516 (Tex. 2007) (“the appealing party bears the burden of proof by a preponderance of the evidence”). Mary Ann argues that Rule 132.3 of the Texas Workers’ Compensation Administrative Rules and Section 408.182 of the Labor Code place the burden of proof of abandonment on the party asserting abandonment. Mary Ann further asserts that, after she established a legal marriage, Liberty was required to establish that Mary Ann had abandoned Benny and that only if Liberty presented clear evidence of abandonment did the burden shift to Mary Ann to present evidence to rebut Liberty’s evidence that she abandoned Benny. Mary Ann contends that the question before the trial court was whether Mary Ann was the proper legal beneficiary, not whether Mary Ann abandoned Benny.
The trial court’s judgment provides that “[t]he issue decided at the administrative level below and on which Judicial Review was sought by [Mary Ann] herein is as follows: Is Mary Ann Tarango the proper legal beneficiary of the deceased, Manuel Tarango, entitling her to death benefits?” Section 408.182 defines “eligible spouse” as “the surviving spouse of a deceased employee unless the spouse abandoned the employee for longer than the year immediately preceding the death without good cause, as determined by the division.” LAB. § 408.182(f)(3). Although Rule 132.3(b)(3) provides that “[t]he burden is on a person who opposes the claim of a surviving spouse to prove the spouse abandoned the deceased employee,” Section 410.303 expressly provides that it is the party who seeks judicial review who has the burden to prove the issue.
The court refused to speculate as to whether the trial court would have entered the same findings and conclusions, and ultimately the same judgment, if the burden of proof had been properly placed on the surviving spouse.
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