162 A.D.2d 209 | N.Y. App. Div. | 1990
Order and judgment (one paper) of the Supreme Court, New York County (Stanley Parness, J.), entered on or about July 6, 1989, upon a decision of Ethel B. Danzig, J., granting summary judgment in favor of defendant, The United States Life Insurance Company in the City of New York (U.S. Life), unanimously affirmed, without costs.
Plaintiffs are beneficiaries of two $500,000 life insurance policies issued to Dr. Hernán Aguilar in 1984 and 1985. Dr. Aguilar died in a jump or fall from his apartment residence on April 6, 1986, within the two-year contestable period of
In support of U.S. Life’s motion for summary judgment, an affidavit from its chief underwriter analyzed the disorders for which Dr. Aguilar had received treatment and their significance in the underwriting manual used by U.S. Life, stating "without equivocation that the policies sued upon would not have been issued had U.S. Life been aware of the true and accurate medical history of Dr. Aguilar”.
There is no doubt that, as defined by Insurance Law § 3105 (a), Dr. Aguilar made misrepresentations on the insurance questionnaires. The question presented herein is whether there exists a triable issue of fact as to whether the misrepresentations were "material”, as defined in Insurance Law § 3105 (b), and as construed by case law concerning this issue. Whether an applicant’s misrepresentations as to his medical situation were material to the risk he was seeking to insure or not is ordinarily a question of fact for the jury. However, where the evidence concerning materiality is clear and substantially uncontradicted, it is for the court to decide as a matter of law (Myers v Equitable Life Assur. Socy., 60 AD2d 942). To demonstrate materiality as a matter of law, an insurer need only show that the misrepresentation "'substantially thwarts the purpose for which the information