Atlanta Acc. Ass'n v. Alexander

• Decision Date: 08 June 1898
• Citation: Atlanta Acc. Ass'n v. Alexander, 104 Ga. 709, 30 S. E. 939 (Ga. 1898)
• Parties: ATLANTA ACCIDENT ASS'N v. ALEXANDER.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

30 S.E. 939

104 Ga. 709

ATLANTA ACCIDENT ASS'N v. ALEXANDER.

Supreme Court of Georgia

June 8, 1898

Syllabus by the Court.

1. Where one is insured against "personal bodily injuries effected *** through external, violent, and accidental means," and there is evidence tending to show that an injury received by the insured resulted from such means, the jury should determine, as a question of fact, whether the injury did result from accidental means. In the present case this issue was, under the charge of the court, fairly submitted to the jury, and there was sufficient evidence to sustain the finding.

2. The insurer is not relieved from liability upon such a policy by a clause therein providing, in effect, that the insurance should not cover "injuries or death resulting from, or caused directly or indirectly, wholly or in part, by disease or bodily infirmity, hernia, *** rupture," etc although the injury received may have produced hernia, which caused the death of the insured.

Error from city court of Atlanta; H. M. Reid, Judge.

Action by Sallie M. Alexander against the Atlanta Accident Association. There was a judgment for plaintiff, and defendant brings error. Affirmed.

Burton Smith and Frank Gordon, for plaintiff in error.

Vasser Woolley, for defendant in error.

SIMMONS C.J.

1. In the case of Association v. Barry, 131 U.S. 100, 9 S.Ct. 755, it appeared that three persons jumped to the ground from a platform four or five feet high. Two of them landed safely, while Barry was injured by the jump. This seemed to have caused some disarrangement of the stomach and, after lingering nine days Barry died. There was no evidence of any thing unusual in the jump. The question was submitted by the trial judge to the jury, who found that Barry's death was caused by accident, and was the result of external, violent, and accidental means. The case was carried to the supreme court of the United States, and the judgment of the lower court affirmed. Blatchford, J., in delivering the opinion of the court, said: "It is further urged that there was no evidence to support the verdict, because no accident was shown. We do not concur in this view. The two companions of the deceased jumped from the same platform, at the same time and place, and alighted safely. It must be presumed, not only that the deceased intended to alight safely, but thought that he would. The jury were, on all the evidence, at liberty to say that it was an accident that he did not. The court properly instructed them that the jumping off the platform was the means by which the injury, if any was sustained, was caused; that the question was whether there was anything accidental unforeseen, involuntary, unexpected, in the act of jumping, from the time the deceased left the platform until he alighted on the ground; that the term 'accidental' was used in the policy in its ordinary, popular sense, as meaning 'happening by chance, unexpectedly taking place, not according to the usual course of things, or not as expected'; that, if a result is such as follows from ordinary means, voluntarily employed, in a not unusual or unexpected way, it cannot be called a result effected by accidental means; but that if, in the act which precedes the injury, something unforeseen, unexpected, unusual, occurs, which produces the injury, then the injury has resulted through accidental means." In the case of Insurance Co. v. Burroughs, 69 Pa. St. 43, the insured, while assisting in hauling and handling hay, sustained an injury to the abdominal muscles, producing peritoneal inflammation, which resulted in death. It was held: "An accidental strain, resulting in death, is an accidental injury, within the meaning of the policy. The words in the policy include...