48 Ga. App. 828 | Ga. Ct. App. | 1934
“All actions upon promissory notes, bills of exchange, or other simple contracts in writing, shall be brought within six years after the same become due and payable." Civil Code (1910), § 4361. (Italics ours.) A contract of insurance not executed under seal is a simple contract in writing, and where no contractual limitations are contained therein as to the time when an action on the policy shall be brought, the statute of limitations applicable to simple contracts in writing applies. 37 C. J. 597, § 378. In Jackson v. Southern Mutual Life Ins. Co., 36 Ga. 429, where the insurance policy provided that the company was obligated to pay the loss “ within sixty days after due notice and proof of the death of” the insured, it was held that the right of action under the policy accrued when the loss under the policy was due and payable [italics ours], that is, sixty days after due notice and proof of death, and that then the right of action accrued and not before. The
If no time is fixed by the policy for the giving of the notice and proofs, they must be given within a reasonable time. What constitutes a reasonable time for giving notice depends on the circumstances of the particular case. 33 C. J. § 657, 11. If no time is fixed by the policy, the proofs must be furnished within a reasonable time, and what is a reasonable time is a question for the jury. Great American Co-op. Fire Asso. v. Jenkins, 11 Ga. App. 784 (76 S. E. 159). Where a life policy requires notice and proof of death, but furnishes no specific time therefor, the notice and proof may and must be given within a reasonable time after the death of the insured. 37 C. J. 557, § 311. Such times as more than seventeen years, or more than ten years have been held to be unreasonable. Shearlock v. New York Mut. D. Ins. Co., 193 Mo. App. 430 (182 S. W. 89); Harrison v. Masonic Mut. Ben. Soc., 59 Kan. 29 (51 Pac. 893). Independently of the statute of limitations, the right to maintain an action on a policy may be barred by the plaintiff’s laches, as, for example, where he delays for ten years to bring the action. 37 C. J. 598. In the absence of any policy provision postponing the time of payment of the insurance, the statutory period of limitation runs from the time of the insured’s death, if on such
As above stated, the plaintiff was totally disabled on December 7, 1926, and had she filed proof of disability on that date, she would have had to wait until six months thereafter before she could have filed suit. There was no contractual limitation upon the time to bring suit, nor upon the time to file proof of disability. Had she filed her proof of disability on December 7, 1926, she could not have brought suit until June 7, 1927. Therefore, under the statute of limitations, the plaintiff had six years, from six months after the date of her disability, in which to file the suit against the defendant insurance company, had she filed the proof of disability on the date she became disabled. The suit was filed on April 5, 1933, which was within six years from June 7, 1927, the first date on which she could have possibly filed suit against the insurance company, had she filed her proof of disability on December 7, 1926, and which was certainly within six years from the date on which she filed the proof of disability and the company refused payment.
Applying the foregoing principles to the facts of the case, the petition set out a case for submission to the jury as to whether or not the plaintiff had waited an unreasonable length of time in making proof of disability and bringing suit upon the policy, and should be barred by laches. If the jury should determine that the
Judgment reversed.