Mutual Ben. Health & Acc. Ass'n v. Johnson

• Decision Date: 06 February 1939
• Docket Number: 33488.
• Citation: Mutual Ben. Health & Acc. Ass'n v. Johnson, 186 So. 297 (Miss. 1939)
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: MUTUAL BEN. HEALTH & ACCIDENT ASS'N v. JOHNSON.

186 So. 297

MUTUAL BEN. HEALTH & ACCIDENT ASS'N v. JOHNSON.

No. 33488.

Supreme Court of Mississippi, Division A.

February 6, 1939

Appeal from Circuit Court, Montgomery County; John F. Allen, Judge.

" Not to be reported in State Reports."

Suit by Mrs. Claudia May Johnson against the Mutual Benefit Health & Accident Association to recover on a policy of accident insurance. Judgment for plaintiff, and the defendant appeals.

Reversed and rendered.

W. H Watkins, Jr., of Jackson, for appellant.

V. D Rowe and H. T. Holmes, both of Winona, for appellee.

McGOWEN, Justice.

In the lower court the first trial of this case resulted in a verdict for the appellant, which was set aside and a new trial granted and subsequently had. On the last trial of the case, there was a verdict and judgment for the appellee, from which an appeal is prosecuted to this Court.

The suit was for the death of the insured by the beneficiary on a policy of accident insurance, agreeing to pay $1250 to the beneficiary " if the insured shall sustain bodily injuries as described in the insuring clause, which injuries shall, independently and exclusively of disease and all other causes, continuously and wholly disable the Insured from the date of the accident and result in any of the following specific losses within thirteen weeks. The Association will pay for loss of life $1250.00" .

On March 29, 1937, the appellant, while carrying two buckets away to slop a neighbor's hogs, slipped on the ice and fell, violently striking the back of his head on the frozen ground, or ice, and one of the buckets he was carrying struck the insured on the cheek near the nose. On the fourth day of April thereafter, his nose and face became swollen and his eyes affected. On the following day he went to see a doctor who applied some lotion and his family applied some cold cloths to his head. On the sixth a physician was called, who found the infection on the inside of the nostril near the tip thereof, which developed into a pimple or boil. He was visited on the following day, and, on the third visit, the physician saw that the infection had ascended through the nostril into the sinus in the cavity on the front of the head, immediately behind the eyes. He was carried to the hospital on April 9, and on the morning of April 10, he died. The two attending physicians testified that the cause of his death was cavernous sinus thrombosis. He had a large clot in a vein of the head back of the eye. The physician testified that the pimple or pimples in the nostril were caused by infection, which had to enter the blood by some kind of break or abrasion in the mucous membrane of the nose. The sum total of the...