Antonowich v. Home Life Ins. Co.
| Decision Date | 12 March 1935 |
| Docket Number | 8000. |
| Citation | 179 S.E. 601,116 W.Va. 155 |
| Parties | ANTONOWICH v. HOME LIFE INS. CO. |
| Court | West Virginia Supreme Court |
Submitted February 26, 1935.
Syllabus by the Court.
1. When a letter is properly addressed, stamped, and delivered to the postal authorities, a rebuttable presumption arises of its delivery. The weight of rebuttal evidence is ordinarily a question for the jury.
2. Code, 56-4-21, dispenses with proof of the observance of any stipulation in a policy of insurance unless noncompliance is charged in the insurer's written statement of defense.
3. To warrant an inference of fact from proven facts the inference must attend the proof naturally and rationally.
4. When an insurance policy requires proof of disability, that requirement is not satisfied by an informal notice.
5. When an insurance policy requires proof of disability, formal proof may be waived by the insurer. Conduct of the insurer calculated to induce delay or to engender the belief that strict compliance will not be required generally constitutes a waiver.
Error to Circuit Court, McDowell County.
Action by Victoria Antonowich against the Home Life Insurance Company. To review a judgment setting aside a verdict for plaintiff, she brings error.
Affirmed.
Capehart & Miller, of Welch, for plaintiff in error.
Strother Curd & Berry, of Welch, for defendant in error.
Plaintiff as beneficiary, seeks to recover upon a life insurance policy issued by defendant to Andy Antonowich, her deceased husband. The trial court set aside a verdict in her favor, and she secured a writ of error.
The policy (for $1,500) was taken out in 1927. The assured paid the premiums until November, 1929, when his back was incurably broken. He was helpless from that time until his death in July, 1933. No payments were made after his injury but the automatic premium loan and the "grace period" continued the policy in force until November 20, 1930. The policy covenanted that after one full annual payment should have been made, and before default in any subsequent premium, the insurer would waive payment of further premiums and would pay insured a monthly income of 1 per cent. of the face of the policy, if (in the language of the policy) "due proof shall be furnished to the company at its home office in the city of New York, that the insured has become totally and permanently disabled."
Defendant pleaded that the policy expired in November, 1930, because the assured neither paid any further premiums nor furnished it with proof of his disability. Plaintiff responded (in statutory form) that defendant had been notified (by letters) of assured's condition in January, 1930, and August, 1930, and that the failure of defendant to answer and to furnish the assured with a blank form requested in one of the letters constituted a waiver of proof. Defendant denied receipt of the letters. The order of the trial court setting aside the verdict gave the following reason: "* * * In view of the denial of receipt of the letters by the defendant, same conclusively rebuts the presumption arising from the testimony in plaintiff's behalf of the writing and mailing of same, and such evidence does not make a question for jury determination, and is insufficient to support the verdict."
The wife of the insured could not read or write. She testified that she directed her daughter by a former husband, Katherine Carmen, to write to the insurance company in January, 1930, of Andy's condition, and saw her write the letter; and knows that Katherine wrote the company again (under the instruction of Andy) in August, 1930.
Katherine testified that she wrote the company the letters of January and August, 1930, to which her mother referred; that in the January letter she informed the insurance company (in the language of the witness) "where my father was, step-father, (in the Mountain State Hospital at Charleston, W. Va.); and that he had a broken back and was badly hurt and I asked them for a blank for a doctor to fill out, and that they would send us one per cent of the policy"; that she addressed the letter to the same address given on "the premium notice"; and that she put a two-cent stamp on the letter and mailed it herself. As to the letter in August, she merely said that she again explained her "father's condition" to the defendant, and that she also stamped and mailed the second letter herself. At the time of these alleged communications she was about fifteen years old.
For the defendant, Mary A. Carlier testified that she was in charge of the defendant's reinstatement department at its home office; that the Antonowich case was referred to her as a lapsed case on November 28, 1930; that she wrote the insured on December 2, 1930, suggesting reinstatement and inclosing an application blank; that the blank was returned to the company on December 6, 1930, unsigned, stating that the assured had been "injured in mine" and "he cannot sign this as he is in the hospital yet in Charleston, W. Va."; and that this blank was the only information which the Antonowich file showed as to his disability. (Katherine Carmen said that she wrote the statements on the blank.) Theodore Stemmerman, an assistant actuary of the defendant, also testified in its behalf. He is in charge of a number of divisions at defendant's home office, among which is the disability division. He said that he had gone over the records of the company since 1929 in reference to Andy Antonowich, and that the records disclosed no claim for disability benefits by or on behalf of him. Further, the witness asserted flatly that the company had received no such claim. (He gave no other reason for his assertion than his examination of the records.)
When a letter is properly addressed, stamped, and delivered to the postal authorities, the rule is well settled that a rebuttable presumption arises of its delivery to the addressee. 22 C.J., subject, Evidence, § 36; 21 R.C.L., subject Post Office, § 36; Moore on Facts, § 551. The defendant contends that the evidence of Miss Carlier and Mr. Stemmerman rebuts as a matter of law the presumption in favor of plaintiff arising from the testimony of Katherine Carmen. Neither one of defendant's witnesses, however, testified that he or she received the defendant's mail from the postman, or distributed the mail to the several divisions of the company, or properly filed its letters. Without evidence of such details, the defendant's proof is not of that high degree which warranted the trial court in holding as a matter of law that the defendant conclusively rebutted the presumption of having received the Carmen letters. In such case the weight of the rebuttal evidence is ordinarily a jury question-here decided against the defendant. Rosenthal v. Walker, 111 U.S. 185, 4 S.Ct. 382, 28 L.Ed. 395; Merchants' Nat. Bank v. Trust Co., 258 Mich. 526, 242 N.W. 739, 85 A.L.R. 350; Farmers' Bank & Tr. Co. v. Central St. Bank (Tex. Civ. App.) 281 S.W. 632; 21 R.C.L., supra, § 40; 22 C.J., supra, § 44.
The defendant would defeat this specific action on the ground that no formal proof of the death of the insured was transmitted to it before the action was instituted, as the policy requires. The defendant did receive timely notification of his death from plaintiff's counsel; and it did not specify the omission of such proof in its written statement of defense. Code, 56-4-21, dispenses with proof of the observance of any condition (in the policy) unless noncompliance is charged by the defendant in that statement. "The statute does not shift the burden of proof, but it does dispense with proof of observance of a clause or condition when there is no statement calling that particular clause or condition in question." Rosenthal, etc., Co. v. Ins. Co., 55 W.Va. 238, 241, 46 S.E. 1021, 1022. Accord: Teter v. Ins. Co., 74 W.Va. 344, 348, 82 S.E. 40.
The testimony of Katherine Carmen, quoted in the statement of this case, embraces her entire description of the alleged letters.
The defendant contends that the letters so described, even if received by it, were too indefinite to charge it with information concerning Antonowich. Katherine does not say specifically how her alleged letters were signed, if at all or whether she referred to the assured by name or merely as father or stepfather. While the inference to be deduced from evidence is ordinarily a question for the jury, the sufficiency of the evidence to warrant the inference is a question of law for the court. 64 C.J., subject Trials, § 317. The fact inferred should attend naturally and rationally the fact proven. Central of Ga. Ry. Co. v. Teasley, 187 Ala. 610, 617, 65 So. 981. O'Reilly v. R. Co., 82 A.D. 492, 81 N.Y.S. 572. Accord: Sims v. Bank, 8 W. Va. 274; Moore v. Heat & Light Co., 65 W.Va. 552, 558, 64 S.E. 721; Miller v. Gas Co., 88 W.Va. 82, 106 S.E. 419; Legg v. Mercantile Co., 105 W.Va. 287, 142 S.E. 259. Katherine was a child of fifteen years when the alleged letters were written. She is not shown to have had at that time any familiarity with business or business correspondence. Her inexperience is demonstrated by her failure to sign her name to her statements on the application blank returned to the defendant in December, 1930. It is not permissible to draw the inferences in relation to the letters of one so immature which would seem natural in relation to the letters of one more experienced. Moreover, the very fact that she was not asked to give more definite...
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