Connecticut Mut Life Ins Co v. Union Trust Co of New York

• Decision Date: 17 November 1884
• Parties: CONNECTICUT MUT. LIFE INS. CO. v. UNION TRUST CO. OF NEW YORK, Trustee, etc
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

112 U.S. 250

5 S.Ct. 119

28 L.Ed. 708

CONNECTICUT MUT. LIFE INS. CO. v. UNION TRUST CO. OF NEW YORK, Trustee, etc.

November 17, 1884.

Mr. JUSTICE HARLAN delivered the opinion of the court.

This is an action upon a policy of life insurance in which a verdict and a judgment were rendered for the plaintiff. The policy was taken out on the twenty-first of February, 1878, by the Union Trust Company of New York, for the benefit of the children of William Orton who might survive him. The insured died on the twenty-second of April of the same year. In the application signed by the trust company and by Orton the following question (the seventh) was propounded: 'Have you ever had any of the following diseases? Answer (yes or no) opposite each.' Then follows a list of diseases about which the applicant was asked—apoplexy, paralysis, insanity, epilepsy, habitual headache, fits, consumption, pneumonia, pleurisy, diphtheria, bronchitis, spitting of blood, habitual cough, asthma, scarlet fever, dyspepsia, colic, rupture, fistula, piles, affection of liver, affection of spleen, fever and ague, disease of the heart, palpitation, aneurism, disease of the urinary organs, syphilis, rheumatism, gout, neuralgia, dropsy, scrofula, small-pox, yellow fever, and cancer or any tumor. As to colic, fistula, and fever and ague, the answer was 'yes,' and as to all the other diseases, 'no.' Being asked in the same question to state the number of attacks, character, and duration of all the diseases which he had had, the applicant answered: 'Had fistula in 1871, induced by intermittent fever; radically cured.' The eighth question was: 'Have you had any other illness, local disease, or personal injury; and if so, of what nature, how long since, and what effect on general health?' The answer was: 'Had colic for one day, October, 1877; no recurrence; general health good.' The fourteenth was: 'How long since you were attended by a physician; in what diseases? Give name and residence of such physician.' The answer was: 'October, 1877; for colic; Dr. Hasbrouck, of Dobbs' Ferry; sick one day.' The fifteenth was: 'Is there any fact relating to your physical condition, personal or family history, or habits which has not been stated in the answers to the foregoing questions, and with which the company ought to be made acquainted?' The answer was: 'No; nothing to my knowledge.' The sixteenth was: 'Have you reviewed the answers to the above questions, and are you sure they are correct?' The answer was, 'yes.' The application concluded in these words: 'It is hereby declared and warranted that the above are fair and true answers to the foregoing questions; and it is acknowledged and agreed by the undersigned that this application shall form a part of the contract of insurance, and that if there be, in any of the answers herein made, any untrue or evasive statements, or any misrepresentations or concealment of facts, then any policy granted upon this application shall be null and void, and all payments made thereon shall be forfeited to the company.' Upon the back of the application were several indorsements, among them the following: 'PROOFS OF DEATH REQUIRED.—Blanks for the several certificates required to be made in proof of death will be furnished upon request.' The policy purports to have been issued in consideration of the representations and declarations made in the application, and of the payment of the annual premium at the time designated therein. It purports, also, to have been issued and accepted upon certain express conditions and agreements, among which are: 'That the answers, statements, representations, and declarations contained in or indorsed upon the application for this insurance—which application is hereby referred to and made part of this contract—are warranted by the assured to be true in all respects, and that if this policy has been obtained by or through any fraud, misrepresentation, or concealment, then this policy shall be absolutely null and void.'

This action was brought to recover the amount insured—due notice and satisfactory evidence of death having been given. The company resisted recovery upon two grounds: (1) That the answers to the seventh, eighth, fourteenth, and sixteenth questions were false and untrue, and known to be by Orton, in this: that so far from his general health being good at the time of the making and delivery of the application and of the issuing of the policy, he had, for many years immediately prior thereto, suffered with piles, affection of the liver, and hab- itual headache, and within less than 18 months prior to the application had been seriously ill for weeks, during which period several physicians attended him; that the illness in October, 1877, continued for some days; that he visited Europe upon one or more occasions for the benefit of his health, and by reason of disease was much enfeebled in body; that at the time of issuing the policy defendant did not know or have reason to believe that said statements, answers, and declarations, or any of them, were untrue, but, believing them to be true, issued the policy; and that by reason of these facts it was null and void. (2) That in the application it was declared that the statements therein were correct and true, and that there was not, to the knowledge of the insured, any fact relating to his physical condition, personal or family history, or habits, not stated in answer to the questions in the application, with which the officers of the defendant ought to be made acquainted; yet he had been and was subject to and afflicted with the diseases therein specified; had a very serious illness and been attended by several physicians; was ill in October, 1877, much longer than stated; and had visited Europe for his health; which facts were within his knowledge, and were material circumstances in relation to the past and present state of his health, habits of life, and condition, rendering an insurance on his life more than usually hazardous, and with which the officers of the company should have been made acquainted; that these facts were concealed from, and misrepresented to, the company by Orton, whereby it was injuriously influenced, and induced to omit such examinations and precautions in reference to his condition and health as would have prevented the issuing the policy upon the considerations and conditions therein set forth; and that, by reason of such concealment and misrepresentation, the policy was and is absolutely null and void.

A. C. Brown, for plaintiff in error.

W. H. Peckham, for defendant in error.

HARLAN, J.

1. In support of the defense, physicians, who had attended the insured professionally, were examined as witnesses; and the first assignment of error relates to the refusal of the court to permit them to answer questions, the object of which was to elicit information, which would not have been allowed to go to the jury, under section 834 of the Code of Civil Procedure of New York, had the action been tried in one of the courts of the state. That section provides that 'a person, duly authorized to practice physic or surgery, shall not be allowed to disclose any information which he acquired in attending a patient in a professional capacity, and which was necessary to enable him to act in that capacity.' It is not, and could not well be, seriously questioned that the evidence excluded by the circuit court was inadmissible under the rule prescribed by that section. Grattan v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. 92 N. Y. 274; Same v. Same, 80 N. Y. 281; Pierson v. People, 79 N. Y. 424; Edington v. AEtna Life Ins. Co. 77 N. Y. 564; Edington v. Mutual Life Ins. Co. 67 N. Y. 185. But it is suggested that truth and justice require the admission of evidence which this statutory rule, rigorously enforced, would exclude, and that it can be admitted without disturbing the relations of confidence properly existing between physician and patient; that it would not afflict the living nor reflect upon the dead, if the physician should testify that his patient had died from a fever, or an affection of the liver; and that the rule, as now understood and applied in the courts of New York, shuts out, in actions upon life policies, the most satisfactory evidence of the existence of disease, and of the cause of death. These considerations, not without weight, so far as the policy of such legislation is concerned, are proper to be addressed to the legislature of that state. But they cannot control the interpretation of the statute, where its words are so plain and unambiguous as to exclude the consideration of extrinsic circumstances. Since it is for that state to determine the rules of evidence to be observed in the courts of her own creation, the only question is whether the circuit court of the United States is required, by the statutes governing its proceedings, to enforce the foregoing provision of the New York Code. This question must be answered in the affirmative. By section 721 of the Revised Statutes, which is a reproduction of the thirty-fourth section of the judiciary act of 1789, it is declared that 'the laws of the several states, except where the constitution, treaties, or statutes of the United States otherwise require or provide, shall be regarded as rules of decision, in trials at common law, in the courts of the United States in cases where they apply.' This has been uniformly construed as requiring the courts of the Union, in the trial of all civil cases at common law, not within the exceptions named, to observe, as rules of decision, the rules of evidence prescribed by the laws of the states in which such courts are held. Potter v. National Bank, 102 U. S. 165; Vance v. Compbell, 1 Black, 427; Wright v. Bales, 2 Black, 535; McNiel v....