Bergeron v. Prudential Ins. Co. of America
| Decision Date | 03 October 1950 |
| Citation | 75 A.2d 709,96 N.H. 304 |
| Parties | BERGERON v. PRUDENTIAL INS. CO. OF AMERICA. |
| Court | New Hampshire Supreme Court |
Ernest R. D'Amours, Manchester, for plaintiff.
Frederick W. Branch, Manchester, for defendant.
The Court's finding that '[t]his collision * * * inflicted no physical force upon his (deceased) body' could reasonably be made on the evidence and plaintiff's exception thereto must be overruled. Wisutskie v. Malouin, 88 N.H. 242, 244, 186 A. 769. The manner in which the accident happened, a car coming out of a parking space ripping the right rear fender of deceased's car causing its tire to blow out resulting in an estimated damage of $75 to his car, coupled with the absence of any testimony that the collision did inflict physical force on deceased's body, is sufficient evidence to justify the above finding. See Emery v. Tilo Roofing Co., 89 N.H. 165, 167, 195 A. 409; Stanton v. Morrison Mills, Inc., 94 N.H. 92, 95, 47 A.2d 112.
Plaintiff's exception to the Court's finding that 'at the time and for some indeterminate period before the accident Mr. Bergeron had suffered from angina pectoris' must also be overruled. Dr. Bailey, a practicing physician called by the plaintiff, testified that he examined the body of the deceased a very few minutes after death occurred and that he received a history from someone there to the effect that deceased had had pain in his chest, and in going into the history of it 'it's very suspicious of angina pectoris, for about a week prior to the accident.' Plaintiff herself testified that in a way her husband had not been well just before this accident. She was worried about it and kept asking what the matter was with him. This was sufficient evidence to support the finding made by the Court.
Considering plaintiff's remaining exceptions together, the law is clear that she had the burden of proving that her husband's death did not result directly or indirectly from bodily or mental infirmity or disease in any form. Newell v. John Hancock Life Ins. Co., 94 N.H. 26, 28, 45 A.2d 579, 166 A.L.R. 1111, and cases cited.
In construing the above exclusion in this policy, the test, under the well established rule in New Hampshire, 'is not what the insurance company intended the words of the policy to mean but what a reasonable person in the position of the insured would have understood them to mean.' Hoyt v. New Hampshire Fire Ins. Co., 92 N.H. 242, 243, 29 A.2d 121, 123, 148 A.L.R. 484; Golding-Keene Co. v. Fidelity Phenix Fire Ins. Co., 96 N.H. 64, 66, 69 A.2d 856, 12 A.L.R.2d 591; Chagnon v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., 96 N.H. ----, 75 A.2d 167. The words 'disease' and 'bodily infirmity' are construed to be practically synonymous and to refer only to some ailment or disorder of an established or settled character to which the insured is subject, an ailment or disorder which materially impairs, weakens, or undermines the condition of the insured and is so considerable or significant that it would be characterized as disease or infirmity in the common speech of men. These words do not include a mere frail general condition so that the powers of resistance are easily overcome, a tendency to disease, a temporary weakness nor a normal physical change that inevitably accompanies advancing years. Silverstein v. Metropolitan Life Ins....
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