Cody v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co.

• Decision Date: 10 April 1939
• Docket Number: 18
• Citation: 5 A.2d 887,334 Pa. 137
• Parties: Cody v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (et al., Appellant)
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

5 A.2d 887

334 Pa. 137

Cody v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (et al., Appellant)

No. 18

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

April 10, 1939

Argued March 27, 1939.

Appeal, No. 18, March T., 1939, by Elizabeth Steeson, alias Elizabeth Steenson, plaintiff in interpleader, from judgment of C.P. Beaver Co., March T., 1935, No. 106, in case of Laura Cody v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. Judgment affirmed.

Interpleader proceeding. Before PATTERSON, P.J., specially presiding.

The opinion of the Supreme Court states the facts.

Verdict and judgment for defendant. Plaintiff, in interpleader appealed.

Error assigned, among others, was refusal of judgment n.o.v.

Judgment affirmed.

Philip R. McLaughlin, with him Campbell, Wick, Houck & Thomas, and N. N. Nelson, for appellant.

Lawrence M. Sebring, for appellee.

Before KEPHART, C.J., SCHAFFER, MAXEY, DREW, LINN and STERN, JJ.

OPINION

MR. LINN, JUSTICE.

This was an interpleader to determine the ownership of money paid into court by the insurance company on a certificate ^[1] of insurance issued pursuant to a policy of group insurance covering employees of Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation. An employee, William H. Cody, received a certificate in which he named his wife beneficiary. The certificate was dated August 30, 1928. He died January 2, 1935. In March, 1932, he and his wife separated and thereafter lived apart; he retained a key to the house in which she continued to live and was visited by her in a hospital shortly before his death. On June 23, 1934, he called on F. W. Kelsey, Superintendent of Safety and Welfare, of Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation and stated that he wished to change the beneficiary. Kelsey supplied him with a proper form which Cody filled out, designating as the proposed beneficiary, "Elizabeth Steeson, friend," and leaving the document with Kelsey who produced it at the trial. The policy provided: "Section 9. CHANGE OF BENEFICIARY. -- Any Employee insured hereunder may, from time to time, change the Beneficiary by filing written notice thereof with the Employer accompanied by the Certificate of such Employee. Such change shall take effect upon endorsement thereof by the Employer on such certificate, and unless the Certificate is so endorsed, the change shall not take effect. After such endorsement, the change will relate back and take effect as of the date the Employee signed said written notice of change, whether or not the Employee be living at the time of such endorsement or not, but without prejudice to the Company on account of any payment made by it before receipt of such written notice."

Cody never produced the certificate for endorsement ^[2] of the proposed change as required in the provision quoted. After his death, more than six months later, the insurance was claimed by his widow as the beneficiary designated in the certificate, and also by Miss Steeson. After the money was paid into court, Miss Steeson became plaintiff in the interpleader and the widow, defendant. The jury would have been justified in finding from the evidence that the policy was kept by the widow in an unlocked box in her residence; that Cody had access to the house but made no effort to get the certificate for the purpose of having the change completed by the required endorsement and therefore abandoned the intention.

The learned trial judge instructed the jury to find whether Cody had done all that on the facts shown could reasonably have been done by him to complete the change by producing the certificate for endorsement and, if they found that he had, their verdict should be for the plaintiff. The verdict was for the widow.

The appellant contends that, as the paper signed by Cody and left with Mr. Kelsey indicated an intention at that time to change the beneficiary, she is entitled to judgment notwithstanding the verdict; if this view is rejected, she contends that a new trial should be granted for errors in rulings on evidence and in the charge. The insurance company discharged its obligation by paying the money into court.

The facts bring the case within the class governed by the rule requiring one claiming on a defectively or imperfectly executed appointment to show that the insured, in exercising the reserved power to make the change, had done everything in the circumstances reasonably possible to comply with the provision: Herrod v. Kimbrough, 83 Pa.Super. 238; Sproat v. Travelers Ins. Co., 289 Pa. 351, 137 A. 621; Shoemaker v. Sun Life Ins. Co., 101 Pa.Super. 278; see Riley v. Wirth, 313 Pa. 362, 169 A. 139; Brauner v. Corgan, 316 Pa. 196, 173 A. 397; Skamoricus v. Konagiskie, 318 Pa. 128, 177 A. 809.

The jury may readily have concluded that Cody should have gone to his wife's residence and procured the certificate ^[3] or have asked ^[4] her to deliver it to him or should have taken other reasonable steps to obtain it (cf. Riley v. Wirth, 313 Pa. 362, 169 A. 139; Skamoricus v. Konagiskie, 318 Pa. 128, 177 A. 809; Brauner v. Corgan, 316 Pa. 196, 173 A. 397), and, having done none of these things during a period of more than six months, he had changed his mind and concluded not to complete the change contemplated at the time he signed the paper left with Mr. Kelsey. On the oral evidence, the question was for the jury; the motion for judgment n.o.v. could therefore not have been granted.

Appellant complains of the exclusion of her offer to show "the general methods employed by the insurer and the employer in handling group insurance and in particular the system adopted for the handling of beneficiary changes, the records kept thereof, and the record so kept of the change of beneficiary in issue in this case." ^[5] The evidence shows what was done and there is no suggestion that it was inconsistent with what was generally done or what was required by the policy or that plaintiff was in any manner prejudiced by the exclusion. For the same reason the fifth assignment must be overruled. The sixth assignment complains that the court sustained an objection to a question...