144 Minn. 282 | Minn. | 1919
Action to recover on a health and accident policy issued by the defendant to Raymond J. Ziegler, in which his mother was named as beneficiary. Plaintiff had a verdict, and from an order denying its alternative motion for judgment or a new trial defendant appealed.
On April 24, 1918, Ziegler signed an application and thereafter received from the defendant a policy for $2,000 as of that date. He died at his mother’s home in Melrose, Minnesota, on July 2 following, as the
It is contended on behalf of the plaintiff that on May 12, while Ziegler was standing on a ladder engaged in the act of removing a storm window from his mother’s residence, the round of the ladder on which he was standing broke, and he fell astride of the round below, thereby causing the injury which resulted in his death;, that on the day following such injury Ziegler resumed his work as time-keeper for a crew of sectionmen, and so continued to work until June 23, when he was taken seriously ill as the result of such injury and died on July 2.
It is contended on behalf of the defendant: (1) That Ziegler made statements in his policy which were false and which materially affected the acceptance of the risk and the hazard assumed; (2) that no written notice of injury was given defendant within 20 days after the date of the injury; (3) that affirmative proof of loss was not furnished the defendant within 90 days after the loss; (4) that the plaintiff failed to establish that death was caused by accidental means.
“NOTICE in case of disability covered by this policy
NOTIFY ANDREW LIDLEY, District Agent.
“517 Pioneer Building,
“'St. Paul, Minn.”
The notice mailed on September 30 was in sufficient time to have reached the agent at St. Paul in the usual course of mail within 90 days after the date of death. If the notice of July 11 was mailed as claimed, that notice would have been sufficient. The question of notice was carefully, and we think correctly, submitted to the jury by the trial court, and the verdict in this respect was supported, by the evidence.
Dr. 'Campbell, the family physician, testified, that he had known the young man for eight or nine years; that he prescribed for him in April and May subsequent to the issuance of the policy in question for a slight
Dr. Boehm testified that he had listened to the testimony upon the trial as to the accident and alleged injury of the deceased on May 12, and, assuming the same to be true, it was his opinion that the trouble was due to the injury received on the ladder, and that peritonitis was the cause of death.
Dr. Goehrs, called by the defendant, testified that the young man came to his office in the latter part of May, 1918; that he examined his person and that he told the patient that it was absolutely a surgical case, and that unless something was done it would lead to something serious; that the boy went away and he never saw him afterwards. The doctor further testified that he had heard all of the testimony upon the trial, and that, assuming it to be true as to the boy’s previous condition, it was his opinion that the cause of death was tuberculosis, that the accident had nothing to do with it, and that the tubercular condition had existed for several months at least. Dr. Dunn’s testimony was in corroboration of that of Dr. Goe'hrs as to the cause of death. There was no other medical testimony in the case.
We think that the cause of Ziegler’s death, under the evidence, was a question of fact for the jury and that the verdict is sustained by the proofs. We find no reversible error in the rulings upon the admissibility of evidence, nor in the charge of the court when considered as a whole.
Affirmed.