57 Ga. App. 206 | Ga. Ct. App. | 1938
The Federal Life Insurance Company insured Emerson G. Mitchell “against death or disability resulting directly, independently, and exclusively of all other causes from bodily injuries sustained while this policy is in force, and effected solely through external, violent, and accidental .means, subject to the limitations and provisions hereof, and, sustained by the insured only in the manner hereuiafter provided.” (Italics ours.) Among other things, the policy covers such specific accidents as the wrecking or disabling of any passenger steamship or street-railway car or passenger elevator or subway car in or on which the insured is traveling as a fare-paying passenger; by wrecking or disablement of a taxicab or public omnibus in which insured is riding as a fare-paying passenger; and by the wrecking or disablement of any automobile, truck, or horse-drawn vehicle in which the insured is riding. In part 4(c) of the policy it is provided that the insured shall be entitled to certain indemnity (the amount here sued for) for injuries received “by being struck or run over while walking or standing on a public street or public highway, by an automobile or any vehicle then being propelled by steam, cable, electricity, naphtha, gasoline, horse, compressed air, or liquid power (excluding injuries sustained while on a railroad right of way or while working in a public highway).” The insured was accidentally killed by being struck by a train while he was walking or standing on a public street or public highway where the same crossed the railroad tracks; and it is not contended that the death of the insured falls within any of the provisions of the policy except the one above quoted. We are thus called upon to determine the meaning of the provision, “excluding injuries sustained while on a railroad right of way or while working in a public highway.”
In the construction of insurance contracts, as well as all other contracts, we are to be guided by certain well-settled rules. Among these is that “policies of insurance will be liberally construed in favor of the object to be accomplished, and provisions therein will be strictly construed against the insurer.” New York Life Insurance Co. v. Thompson, 45 Ga. App. 638 (165 S. E. 847). However, “the cardinal rule of construction is to ascertain the intention of the parties. If that intention be clear, and it contravenes no rule of law, and sufficient words be used to arrive at the intention, it shall be enforced, irrespective of all technical or arbitrary
It is to be remembered, even if the excepting clause be not considered, that the policy applies only when the insured is struck while walking or standing on a public street or highway. Thus where the public street or highway intersects a railroad right of way, the only area covered by the policy is that of the street or highway. Counsel for plaintiff earnestly insists that the excepting clause “really attempted to contract against assured doing what is commonly known as ‘track walking;’” that is to say, presumably, since as above pointed out the policy did not cover an injury to
Judgment affirmed.