Clinton v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co.
| Decision Date | 02 June 1936 |
| Docket Number | No. 23167.,23167. |
| Citation | 94 S.W.2d 1080 |
| Parties | CLINTON v. METROPOLITAN LIFE INS. CO. |
| Court | Missouri Court of Appeals |
Appeal from Circuit Court, St. Francois County; Taylor Smith, Judge.
"Not to be published in State Reports."
Action by Louis Clinton against the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals.
Reversed and remanded with directions.
Fordyce, White, Mayne & Williams, of St. Louis, Edgar & Banta, of Ironton, and Fred M. Switzer, Jr., of St. Louis (Leroy A. Lincoln, of New York City, of counsel), for appellant.
Davis & Damron, of Fredericktown, and L. W. Chapman, of St. Louis, for respondent.
BENNICK, Commissioner.
This is an action for the total and permanent disability benefits provided by a policy of group insurance issued by defendant, Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, to St. Joseph Lead Company, for the benefit and protection of the latter's employees in its lead mines in and around St. Francois county, Mo.
Plaintiff was originally an employee of the lead company, and as such concededly became insured under the policy in question. On March 1, 1930, the operation of the lead company's power plant at Rivermines, Mo., in which plaintiff was employed, was taken over by the Union Electric Light & Power Company of St. Louis, but under such an arrangement that the latter kept the same employees on the job, and retained in force the group policy in question for the benefit of such employees.
It was an admitted fact that plaintiff was insured under the policy for the sum of $4,000 until March 31, 1932, when he was laid off by his last employer. This case, of course, proceeds upon the theory that prior to such termination of his employment plaintiff had sustained a total and permanent disability so as to entitle him to receive the monthly benefit payments provided by the policy, each in the sum of $45.67, and limited to one hundred in number in the case of an insurance coverage of $4,000.
Upon a trial to a jury in the circuit court of St. Francois county, a unanimous verdict was returned in favor of plaintiff, and against defendant, in the sum of $867.73, representing the aggregate of nineteen monthly installments found to be due plaintiff from the date when his employment terminated up to the time of the institution of suit on October 11, 1933. Defendant's motion for a new trial was thereupon filed and overruled, and its appeal to this court has followed in the usual course.
No detailed statement is required regarding the contents of the pleadings or the scope taken by the evidence in view of the fact that the case as presently submitted presents but one point for our consideration, the same having to do with the measure of plaintiff's recovery in this action.
The total and permanent disability benefit clause of the policy provides, in substance, that upon receipt at its home office in New York of due proof that any employee, while insured under the policy, and prior to his sixtieth birthday, has become totally and permanently disabled as a result of bodily injury or disease so as to be prevented thereby from engaging in any occupation and performing any work for compensation or profit the company will waive the payment of further premiums as to such employee, and six months after receipt of such proof, and in lieu of the payment of insurance at his death, will commence to pay monthly installments of disability benefits computed as to number and amount upon the basis of the amount of insurance in force upon the life of the employee, and continued within the limits fixed by the policy so long as the employee continues to be totally and permanently disabled.
This very clause of the policy has but recently been construed by this court as serving to postpone the commencement of the payment of the monthly installments called for by the policy for a period of six months after the receipt of due proof of disability at the company's home office. In other words, by the clear and unambiguous language of the policy the making of due proof of disability and the expiration of the waiting period of six months thereafter are made conditions precedent to the attaching of the obligation of the company to begin the making of payments. Moss v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. (Mo.App.) 84 S.W.(2d) 395, certiorari quashed State ex rel. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Hostetter (Mo.Sup.) 92 S.W.(2d) 122; Farmer v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. (Mo.App.) 85 S.W.(2d) 235, certiorari quashed State ex rel. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Hostetter (Mo.Sup.) 92 S.W.(2d) 126.
Upon the theory that the policy should be so construed, defendant, at the trial of the cause, asked but was refused its instruction No. 8, which would have limited plaintiff's recovery to the aggregate of the seven monthly installments accruing between the time of the termination of the six-months' period following the making of due proof of disability and the time of the institution of the action.
Plaintiff, on the other hand, asked and...
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