Defendant’s defense to plaintiff’s claim as beneficiary of three insurance policies totalling $8,000 upon the life of her deceased husband is based upon the contention that in applying for the insurance the insured had misrepresented the facts as to consultations he had had with physicians. After defendant had filed its answer herein wherein it raised this defense by detailed allegations and showed a tender of premiums paid, it then proceeded to take the depositions of two physicians, who testified that deceased had in fact consulted them, but not as to the-reasons for or nature of such consultations, since plaintiff claimed her statutory privilege (New York Civil Practice Act, § 352, applying also in the federal court below, Connecticut Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. Union Trust Co.,
The deceased took out the policies, which became incontestable after two years, in November, 1941. He died on April 8, 1942., By their terms the policies made the written statements of the deceased in his application “representations” and within the-provisions of New York Insurance Law,. Consol. Laws, c. 28, § 149, as amended in: 1939, dealing with “Representations by the-insured.” See Patterson, The Insurance-Law Revision of 1939, 11 N.Y.St. Bar Bull., 135. The question and answer here particularly involved are as follows: “10.l. When and for what reason did you last, consult a physician?” “Pleurisy (dry). 1921. Brief. Due to exposure only. 1921. Dr. -? Berlin.” Other questions and; answers involved are the question whether-he had ever consulted a physician for or-suffered from any disease of “Stomach, Intestines, Liver, Kidneys or Bladder,” with, the answer “No,” the question, “Have you, had regular or occasional health examinations ?” with a like answer, and the further questions immediately following, “Date of' last?-” and “By Dr.-” with lines. *471 drawn after them to show negative answers to them.
The depositions of Drs.’Schur and Bernstein brought out that the deceased had in fact consulted Dr. Schur on March 26, May 28, and June 20, 1940 (in addition to other visits particularly for his wife), that the doctor had prescribed for him and had referred him to Dr. Bernstein, a radiologist, for X-rays, and that Dr. Bernstein in May, 1940, had taken six X-rays of the insured’s gall bladder over a period of three days after he had followed a certain preparatory diet. (That the part of the insured’s body X-rayed was in fact the gall bladder was received only under motion to strike, but it would seem admissible under the rule that the statutory privilege does-not extend to matters observable by any third person if present. Klein v. Prudential Ins. Co.,
New York Insurance Law, § 149 provides in its sub. 2 that misrepresentations shall not defeat recovery on the policy unless material and shall be deemed material only if the insurer would not have made the contract except for reliance upon the misrepresentations, and in sub. 4 that a misrepresentation that an applicant has not had previous medical treatment shall be deemed a misrepresentation that the applicant has not had the disease for which such treatment was given, concluding with this pertinent sentence: “If in any action to rescind any such contract or to recover thereon, any such misrepresentation is proved by the insurer, and the insured or any other person having or claiming a right under such contract shall prevent full disclosure and proof of the nature of such medical impairment, such misrepresentation shall be presumed to have been material.” The district court, in granting judgment, held that plaintiff had prevented full disclosure, that the presumption therefore operated, and that plaintiff’s own affidavit was not enough to explain the visits to and the X-rays of the physicians, citing particularly Anderson v. Aetna Life Ins. Co.,
In view of this pertinent New York law there can be no doubt that if the state of the evidence at a trial should be as is above disclosed a judgment for defendant must necessarily follow; and if a jury were present, there would be error in failing to direct a verdict. This in effect plaintiff concedes by basing her argument upon the claim that her case is not to be viewed as it would be at trial. For this she cites and relies on Federal Rule 26(b), 28 U.S.C.A. following section 723c, which provides as to the “scope” of examination before trial that it shall be only as to relevant matter “not privileged.” And the steps in her argument are that, since examination before trial of the physicians on these matters could not be compelled, she might therefore wait until trial to determine whether to' make use of their testimony. Of course, she, or at least the deceased’s “personal representatives,” had the undoubted right to waive the privilege. New York Civil Practice Act, § 354, permitting waiver “upon the trial or examination”; Capron v. Douglass,
The limitation of Federal Rule 26 (b) of the scope of examination before trial to relevant matter not privileged has a quite different objective from that visualized in the plaintiff’s argument. For by the extensive discovery practice of the new rules, examination before trial may be had not merely for the purpose of producing evidence to be used at the trial, but also for discovery of evidence, indeed, for leads as to where evidence may be located. Thus sub. (a) of Rule 26 expressly states that examination may be had “for the purpose of discovery or for use as evidence in the action or for both purposes,” and sub. (b), dealing with the “scope of examination,” authorizes it as to, among other things, “the existence, description, nature, custody, condition, and location of any books, documents, or other tangible things and the identity and location of persons having knowledge of relevant facts”; while the use of the testimony secured in evidence is governed by an entirely separate provision, sub. (d), setting forth various rules of admissibility. This dual nature of the discovery procedure, one of the most important parts of the new system, has been widely commented upon and its value frequently attested.
1
Subdivision (b), therefore, extends much beyond sub. (d) in allowing examination into matters which may not be admissible in evidence. But, to guard against abuse by inquiry into matters protected by law, Woernley v. Electromatic Typewriters,
There is nothing in this history, however, to suggest that the respect thus shown to a privileged communication should limit the procedure under a different rule, namely, that for summary judgment under Federal Rule 56. The express language of Rule 56, read in its natural context, is to the contrary, for sub. (c) provides that “the judgment sought shall be rendered forthwith if the pleadings, depositions, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that, except as to the amount of damages, there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law.” Here the depositions, taken at their face value, and construed in the light of the underlying law of the state, show that there is no genuine issue of material fact and support the judgment rendered.
But the matter is sufficiently important so that we should go beyond the bare words of the summary-judgment rule to the reasons behind it. The federal summary judgment proceeding is the most extensive of any jurisdiction in that it is equally available "to plaintiffs and defendants and in all forms and kinds of civil actions. But the history of the development of this procedure shows that it is intended to permit “a party to pierce the allegations of fact in the pleadings and to obtain relief by summary judgment where facts set forth in detail in affidavits, depositions, and admissions on file show that there are no genuine issues of fact to be tried.” 3 Moore’s Federal Practice 3175. In New York the question of constitutionality was settled by considering the procedure as one to determine whether a defense or issue formally stated between the parties was merely sham and not bona fide. Formerly this could be determined only on the face of the pleadings; the only essentially new step was to allow such a showing to be made on the basis of detailed affidavits. The rationale is well stated in one of the leading cases establishing constitutionality, Hanna v. Mitchell,
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a false denial, which defendants are unable to justify, must nevertheless put the plaintiff to his common-law proof before a jury, although the result would be a directed verdict in plaintiff’s favor as a matter of law, is to exalt the shadow above the substance.”
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Hence we have often held that mere formal denials or general allegations which do not show the facts in detail and with precision are insufficient to prevent the award of summary judgment. See, for example, Shotkin v. Mutual Benefit Health & Accident Ass’n, 2 Cir.,
In the present case we have from the plaintiff not even a denial of the basic facts, but only in effect an assertion that at trial she may produce further evidence, which she is now holding back, to controvert the legal deduction from the New York statute and decisions that ihe conceded misrepresentations of the application are material. If one may thus reserve one’s evidence when faced with a motion for summary judgment there would be little opportunity “to pierce the allegations of fact in the pleadings” or to determine that the issues formally raised were in fact sham or otherwise unsubstantial. It is hard to see why a litigant could not then generally avail himself of this means of delaying presentation of his case until the trial. So easy a method of rendering useless the very valuable remedy of summary judgment is not suggested in any part of its history or in any one of the applicable decisions.
Judgment affirmed.
Notes
See Pike and Willis, The New Federal Deposition-Discovery Procedure, 38 Col.L.Rev. 1179, 1187, 1436, 1440-1443; Pike, The New Federal Deposition-Discovery Procedure and the Rules of Evidence, 34 Ill.L.Rev. 1, 3-8; Pike and Willis, Federal Discovery in Operation, 7 U. of Chi.L.Rev. 297, 309-318; Pike, Some Current Trends in the Construction of the Federal Rules, 9 Geo.Wash.L.Rev. 26, 41; Holtzoff, Instruments of Discovery under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, 41 Mich.L.Rev. 205; Ilsen, Recent Cases and New Developments in Federal Practice and Procedure, 16 St. John’s L.Rev. 1, 11; Hincks, J., in Lewis v. United Air Lines Transport Corp., D.C.Conn.,
Thus, Mr. Justice Shientag, in his illuminating article, Summary Judgment, 4 Fordham L.Rev. 186, states at page 201 that “one moving for summary judgment should be prepared to put his cards on the table, and to anticipate a defense which may be interposed,” and, at pages 205-207, that the opposing affidavits must go fully into the facts or, as Lord Blackburn said in Wallingford v. Directors, etc., of the Mutual Soc., 5 App.Cas. 685, 704, they must “condescend upon particulars.” See, also, Clark, Summary Judgments, 25 J. Am.Jud.Soc. 20, 1942 Handbk. Nat. Conf. of Judicial Councils 55, together with the cases there cited.