149 Ky. 717 | Ky. Ct. App. | 1912
Opinion of the Court by
Affirming.
On August 22, 1910, the appellant, the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, issued its policy of insurance upon the life of Estella Little, a young woman then 23 years of age, payable to James Little, her father, the appellee. Estella Little died on July 24, 1911. Proofs of her death were made up and presented to the company with demand for payment. The company. denied liability under the policy; whereupon James Little brought his action below to enforce it. Upon trial a jury was waived, evidence heard and judgment rendered in favor of James Little for the amount named in the policy. The insurance company appeals.
In the text of the policy contract is to be found the following provision: “Unless otherwise stated in the blank space below in a waiver signed by the Secretary, this policy is void if the insured before'its date has been rejected for insurance by this or any other company, or has been attended by a physician for any serious disease or complaint; or has had before said date any pulmonary disease, or chronic bronchitis, or cancer, or disease of the heart, liver or kidneys.” The company in its answer setting up this provision of the policy said that there was
As the application- was not attached to nor incorporated in the policy, it was properly excluded from the evidence. Kentucky Statutes, section 679. We are not permitted to consider, therefore, the truth or falsity of any representations made in the application for the insurance, nor to consider whether these representations were material to the company. The exclusion of the application leaves us to consider alone the above set out provision of the policy contract proper, and.-the effect upon the validity of the contract of any prior serious disease or complaint of the assured for which she had been attended by a physician, or any of the specific diseases enumerated in the provision which she is alleged to have had.
Upon the trial the. court found in its separation of. the law and facts that the insured, prior to the issue of the policy, had not been attended by a physician for any serious illness, or for any pulmonary trouble. It will be noted that the provision quoted does not demand that the pulmonary trouble need have been treated by a physician- in order to avoid the policy; but that the very existence of the disease, whether it had received medi
The far-reaching effect of the .provision quoted in the poliqy is not hard to see. If the insured under this policy had as a child had scarlet fever, or pneumonia, or any of the manifold diseases to which humanity is subject, and had effected years ago a perfect recovery from it, with continued robust health afterward, and then had died from some wholly disconnected cause, the mere fact of the existence of such former disease, accompanied by a physician’s treatment, would, under the bald terms of the contract, suffice to render it void. It is true that in the controversy at bar we are met with no such state of fact
The trial court found as a matter of fact that the assured bad not suffered from any serious disease. We find ourselves unprepared to give any exact definition of a “serious disease.” The record presents no testimony from any physician to show bow serious might be the effect of, or bow lasting might be the consequences of, the illnesses for wbicb she bad been treated shortly before the issual of the policy. The Century Dictionary defines a serious illness as ‘ ‘ one attended by danger, giving-rise to apprehension.” In Brown v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., 65 Mich., 306, a serious illness is said to be “a grave, important, weighty trouble.” In Drakeford v. Supreme Conclave K. D., 61 S. Car., 338, it is said that a sickness may be very bad and very sad and yet not serious; that any permanent or material impairment of health is a serious illness. Certainly the idea is not to be tolerated that mere temporary disorders or functional disturbances having no effect upon the general health or duration of life, should, within even the strict terms of the contract, be considered serious illnesses. Upon the other hand, there are certain diseases, such as consumption, that the ordinary mind, untrained in medicine, knows beyond question to be serious. Between these extremes there is a broad line of ills of varying natures, the seriousness of wbicb can only be told with any degree of exactitude by those who are trained in the study of the human body and of the effect of the various diseases and illnesses upon it. We incline to agree with the South Carolina court’s view that a serious illness in insurance terminology must be one entailing some permanent or material impairment of health; and there is no testimony in the record before
The judgment of the trial court is affirmed.