General Accident, Fire & Life Assurance Corp. v. Homely

Schmucicek, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The appellee sued the appellant company in assumpsit in the Superior Court of Baltimore City upon a policy of insurance issued by it upon the life of her son, George II. Gardiner. The verdict and judgment below were in her favor for the full amount of the policy and the company took the present appeal.

The policy sued on is of the now familiar class which furnish indemnity to a designated beneficiary for loss accruing from accidental and external injuries, fatal or otherwise, to the assured. The expressions employed in the earlier part of the policy limit the liability of the company to losses resulting from external accidental agencies, “independently of all other •causes,” but in a later clause of the document a modified liability is distinctly assumed for loss from “injury, fatal or •otherwise, or disability, due wholly or in part directly or indirectly to disease or bodily infirmity.” The portion of the policy providing for that modified responsibility of the company is known as clause (h), and is in the following language: “In event of injury or loss, fatal or otherwise, of which there shall be no external or visible mark on the body; or injury, fata] or otherwise, or disability due wholly or in part directly or indirectly to disease •or bodily infirmity; * * * then and in all such cases referred to in this paragraph, the limit of the company’s liability shall be one-fifth of the amount which would otherwise be payable under this policy, anything herein to the contrary notwithstanding.” The declaration in the case before us only avers an insur•ance against death resulting directly and independently of all other causes from bodily injuries effected through external, violent and accidental means, but declares upon the policy, ■designating it by its number and date. ⁹⁶ There is hut one bill of exceptions in the record, and that is to the Court’s action on the prayers. The plaintiff offered but one prayer, which the Court granted. It asked the Court to instruct the jury, “that if they shall find from the evidence that on October 20th, 1906, George H.'Gardiner was insured in the Defendant Company against death by accident, and that upon that date the said George H. Gardiner sustained an injury through being struck by a bale of hay upon the back or side, and that upon the day following said accident there was a welt upon his back, and that on the fourth day after the accident an examination of the said Gardiner by two practicing physicians disclosed a tremor, tension and sensitiveness of the muscles of the back, and that on the 21th day of October, 1906, the said George H. Gardiner died of acute nephritis caused by the said accident, and if they shall further find that said Gardiner was at the time of said accident, and until his death, free from disease, except acute nephritis, caused by the accident, and that from and after the said accident he was unable to perform his duties, then their verdict may be for the plaintiff.” The Court- rejected the defendant’s first and third prayers, and granted its second prayer as modified, and its fourth prayer as originally offered.

The first of these prayers asked the Court to take the case from the jury for want of legally sufficient evidence to entitle the plaintiff to recover. The second placed upon the plaintiff the burden of proof that the death of the insured was caused by external, violent and accidental means, and concluded with the words, “and if those injuries alone did not occasion his death, then the verdict must be for the defendant.” The Court struck out the concluding words and granted the prayer as thus modified. The third prayer declared that if the jury found from the evidence that at the time of the accident the insured was suffering from a pre-existing disease, in the absence of which the accident would not have caused his death, and that he died ⁹⁷ because the accident aggravated the disease or the disease aggravated the effects of the accident, then their verdict must be for the defendant. There is evidence in the record tending to show the following state of facts: The assured was an unmarried colored man, about forty years of age, who had been employed for more than six years prior to- his death at the Warwick stables in Baltimore City.

He was a person of unusual strength, in apparently good health, and was uniformly industrious and attentive to his duties. He took an occasional drink of liquor, but was not intemperate in his habits. On Saturday afternoon, October 20th, 1906, when he was at- work on the ground floor of the stable, a bale of hay was thrown down the hatchway from an upper story of the building and struck the ground near by him, and then, rebounding, struck him on the back and knocked him down. Lie was picked up by his fellow workmen, and complained of pain in his back where the hay struck him.

He showed his back to one of them, Harrison Hayden, who testified that he saw a bruise