delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner, a beneficiary of a policy of accident insurance issued to her husband by respondent, brought this suit in the District Court for Northern California to recover under the double indemnity provisions of the policy. At the trial liability was conceded for the single amount stipulated to be paid in the event of the insured’s death by accident, but double liability was contested on the ground that the insured, at the time of the accident, was not a passenger on a common carrier within the meaning of the double indemnity provisions of the policy. A judgment entered upon a verdict for the petitioner for the double liability was reversed by the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which directed that judgment be reduced by one-half. 65 F. (2d) 976. Certiorari was
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granted to resolve an alleged conflict of the decision below with those in other circuits. See
London Guarantee & Accident Co.
v.
Ladd; Preferred Accident Ins. Co.
v.
Ladd,
The policy provided for payment of a specified amount in case of loss of life of the insured resulting from accidental bodily injury and for payment of double that amount “if such injury is sustained by the insured (1) while a passenger in or on a public conveyance (including the platform, steps or running board thereof) provided by a common carrier for passenger service.” The insured, who had in his possession a ticket entitling him to transportation, arrived at the railroad station platform just as the train started to move out of the station. There was testimony from which the jury might have found that, while the train was moving at a speed of seven to ten miles an hour but was still within the station and opposite the platform, with vestibule doors open, the insured jumped onto the lower step of a car, his hand grasping the handrail, and that he continued for a brief time, while the train moved about twenty feet, to stand with both feet upon the step but with a small part of his body or clothing projecting beyond or outside the vestibule until it brushed against a bystander on the platform in a manner causing the insured to lose his hold and fall to his death.
The trial judge instructed the jury that if the.insured held a ticket entitling him to ride as a passenger, and in attempting to board the train while in motion he stood with both feet upon the step, he was a passenger and entitled to recover under the double indemnity clause. The only question which it is necessary .to decide here is whether the insured was a “ passenger ” at the time of the accident within the meaning of the policy. The Court of *83 Appeals ruled that he was not; it reached this conclusion by applying the term as it was said to be defined in the law of common carriers.
In personal injury suits against common carriers, brought by persons who, intending to be passengers, were injured while endeavoring to mount the steps of a moving train, courts have sometimes said that the implied invitation to board the train is withdrawn when it begins to move and that the duty of the carrier to exercise a high degree of care toward its passengers does not attach in such circumstances because one seeking to board a moving train does not become a passenger until he reaches a place of safety.
Trapnell
v.
Hines,
No doubt intending passengers who are injured in attempting to board a moving train, unless they were invited to do so, are not usually entitled to recover from the carrier. But it is not clear that such cases turn on the existence or non-existence of the passenger-carrier relationship. See
Atchison, T. & S. F. Ry. Co.
v.
Holloway,
But it is unnecessary here to follow the niceties of legal reasoning and terminology applied in negligence suits against common carriers, for we are interpreting a contract and are concerned only with the sense in which its words were used.
Farber
v.
Mutual Life Ins. Co.,
We think the word “ passenger ” can not be restricted to the technical meaning which may be assigned to it. by the law of common carriers, for it also has a common or popular meaning which would at least include the insured who, with a ticket in his possession, was riding on the steps of the train. In its usual popular significance the term, when applied to one riding a train, indicates a traveller, intending to be transported for hire or upon contract with the carrier, and distinguishes him from those employed to render service in connection with the journey. See
Wood
v.
General Accident Ins. Co.,
That the stipulation to be construed is one for double indemnity calls for no different conclusion. It has been
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argued that such a provision contemplates a risk which is comparatively slight and that therefore it should be strictly construed. It may be that the insurer assumes little additional risk; but the terms of the clause disclose an inducement to insure set forth in attractive detail.
1
The policy contains no exceptions exempting the insurer from liability if the injury is caused by negligence of the insured, or restricting the liability to accidents occurring only after a point of safety has been reached, and the steps of a car are specifically included in the place where injury insured against may occur. Nothing in the policy gives any hint that words in this clause are used more narrowly than those in any other. The insurer has chosen the terms, and it must be held to their full measure in this clause, as in any other, whether its promise be for more or less.
London Guarantee & Accident Co.
v.
Ladd,
Reversed.
Notes
Discussion of the double indemnity provisions from the standpoint of risk and sales value may be found in Sommer, Manual of Accident and Health Insurance, 16, 84 et seq.; Hutcheson, Note on Double Indemnity Clauses, 19 Transactions, Actuarial Society of America, 332.