314 Mass. 269 | Mass. | 1943
The plaintiff brings this action to recover disability payments alleged to have fallen due to her intestate, Frank R. Wing, in his lifetime, while he was insured by the defendant under a group insurance policy issued by the defendant to Wing’s employer, Associated Gas and Electric Company, hereinafter called the employer.
There was evidence that Wing had “signed an applica
The trial judge directed a verdict for the defendant on the ground that .there was no evidence that the employer was the agent of the defendant ‘jin respect to the giving of
It is not difficult to analyze the situation here presented. The taking out of the master policy, the deductions from the wages of the employees, and the adjustment and payment of the premiums were all necessarily done by the employer, but there is nothing to show that in doing any of these things the employer acted as the agent of the defendant. If there was any agency at all, it would seem to have been one in behalf of the employees for whose benefit the master policy was taken out and the premiums upon it paid. There is nothing to show that the employer had anything whatever to do with notice, proofs, or payment of losses. Each employee had his own certificate, which took the place of the ordinary insurance policy, contained the terms of the contract with him, and informed him what he had to do in case of disability. He could bring his own action against the defendant, as his administratrix has now done, without the intervention of the employer. Shea v. Aetna Life Ins. Co. 292 Mass. 575, 580-582. Trucken v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. 303 Mass. 501, 504. In relation to losses he stood like any other policyholder and could deal directly with the company in accordance with his contract. See Beecey v. Travelers Ins. Co. 267 Mass. 135.
It follows from what has been said that the employer could not be found to have been the agent of the defendant to receive notice, and that the doctor’s certificate furnished to the employer was not notice to the defendant within the terms of Wing’s certificate of insurance. Similar results have been reached in other jurisdictions where similar questions have arisen. Duval v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. 82 N. H. 543, 548-551. Boseman v. Connecticut General Life Ins. Co. 301 U. S. 196, 204, and cases cited. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Quilty, 92 Fed. (2d) 829, 832.
We need not inquire whether, under the terms of the insurance certificate, a simple statement of a doctor as to the nature of an illness, given to his employer by an employee who had received his pay while out sick, would have been
Exceptions overruled.