102 Minn. 186 | Minn. | 1907
On February 2, 1904, defendant and respondent casualty company, in consideration of a premium paid to it by Charles O. Bader, executed to him a policy of accident insurance for the term of one year. The beneficiary named therein was the plaintiff and appellant, the wife of the assured. The policy was subsequently renewed for another year. On December 23, 1905, Bader was shot by robbers at his place of business, was immediately taken to a hospital, and died within an hour from the effects of the wound. Due notice of loss and proofs of death rtere furnished. On refusal by the company to pay, this action was brought. Plaintiff sought to recover the full amount of insurance for loss of life by accident, $2,500, with interest. The answer of the company denied liability, and asked that the action be dismissed. On trial, the court ordered judgment in favor of plaintiff for one-half the principal sum, $1,275, with interest, in accordance with a contract provision hereinafter set forth in full. This appeal was taken from an order denying plaintiff’s motion for a new trial and to modify the conclusions of law to correspond with the findings of fact.
The only question presented by this appeal is the construction of the following paragraph in the policy, viz.:
Special Indemnities.
This policy does not exclude indemnity for loss by accident as herein provided, caused or contributed to, wholly or partly, directly or indirectly, by sunstroke, freezing, anaesthetics, gas, lockjaw, septicaemia, narcotics, poison, somnambulism, racing, shooting, intoxicants, asphyxiation, riot, polo playing, wrestling, strikes, steeplechasing, football playing, hydrophobia, riding to hounds, or by bite of animal; but in any such event the liability of the company shall be one-half of the amount of the ordinary accident indemnity specified for such loss.
A proper construction of the contract involves its examination as a whole. Thereby the defendant company agreed to pay certain indemnities under the following general co-ordinate and conspicuous
This policy does not exclude indemnity for loss by accident as herein provided, caused or contributed to, wholly or partly, directly or indirectly, by * * * shooting; * * * but in any such event the liability of the company shall be one-half of the amount of the ordinary accident indemnity specified for such loss.
This apparent and normal construction of the controlling paragraph counsel for plaintiff insists is not the proper one on principle or on authority. The first of the two rules of construction which he invokes is the familiar and undisputed one that the terms of insurance policies should be interpreted in favor of the assured, particularly in cases of forfeiture of his interest. “It is a well-settled rule in the construction of, insurance policies of this character, which the insured accepts for the purpose of covering all accidents, to construe all the language used to limit the liability of the company strictly against the company. Policies are drawn by the legal advisers of the company, who study with care the decisions of the courts, and with those in mind attempt to limit as narrowly as possible the scope of the insurance. It is only a fair rule, therefore, which courts have adopted, to
Applying these rules to the case at bar, we agree with plaintiff that the paragraph here in issue should not be construed as defining risks which are ordinarily referred to in insurance law as “excepted risks.” The title of the paragraph appropriately describes its provisions. They prescribe contract obligations in case of “special” as distinguished from “ordinary,” “double,” “increased,” or other indemnities. The result is a limitation upon the amount paid in the special cases enumerated in the paragraph.
The question next arises whether the word “shooting,” grouped with other words in the context, should be construed as a physical sport, or at least as a shooting in which the assured had in some way participated or to which he had consented. The paragraph in
Plaintiff’s conclusion is not impossible, but paralogical. In effect it would make a new contract for the parties. To adopt it would merit Judge Sanborn’s condemnation that the court would appear “to be cunning and astute to evade, rather than quick to perceive and diligent to apply, the meaning of the words it [the policy] contains in their plain, ordinary and popular sense.” McGlother v. Provident Mut. Acc. Co., 32 C. C. A. 318, 321, 89 Fed. 685.
To a peculiar degree the controversies in all of these cases have waged around certain verbal phrases. The precise wording employed in the policy at bar has not been the subject of adjudication. It is, of course, wholly immaterial whether in one case the question concerned the word “poison” and that in the present case it concerns the word “shooting.” The essential differences arise in part from the qualifications attached to particular words in most of plaintiff’s cases which are not presented here, in part from the other words in immediate juxtaposition thereto, and largely from the title “Special Indemnities,” which, as construed in connection with other co-ordinate titles in the same policy, is peculiar to the instance in dispute. Moreover, in most of plaintiff’s cases the policies exclude indemnity for any of. the specified items; and the courts held that, as to such matters as the insured did not voluntarily and consciously participate in, the loss was due to accident, and therefore not beyond the company’s responsibility. Here, in any view, loss by shooting, however, is treated as an accident and paid.
In Preferred Accident v. Robinson, 45 Fla. 525, 33 South. 1005, 61 L. R. A. 145, 148, Taylor, C. J., referring to plaintiff’s New York and other authorities, said: “Even if [these cases] were sound law,.
Order affirmed.