Craig v. U.S. Health & Acc. Ins. Co.

• Decision Date: 22 April 1908
• Parties: CRAIG v. UNITED STATES HEALTH & ACCIDENT INS. CO.
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court

61 S.E. 423

80 S.C. 151

CRAIG v. UNITED STATES HEALTH & ACCIDENT INS. CO.

Supreme Court of South Carolina

April 22, 1908

Appeal from Common Pleas Circuit Court of Lancaster County; Chas. G Dantzler, Judge.

Action by W. D. Craig against the United States Health & Accident Insurance Company on a policy. From a judgment for plaintiff defendant appeals. Affirmed.

Ernest Moore, for appellant.

W. P Robinson, for respondent.

WOODS J.

The plaintiff obtained from the defendant company a policy of insurance against accident and sickness, dated February 21, 1906, which contained these provisions: "Or at the rate of fifty dollars per month for the number of consecutive days, after the first week, that the assured is necessarily and continuously confined within the house and therein regularly visited by a legally qualified physician by reason of illness; *** or if during convalescence immediately following said confinement, or by reason of any nonconfining illness, the assured shall be wholly and continuously disabled from performing every duty pertaining to any business or occupation, and require the regular attendance of such physician, the company will pay him indemnity at one-fifth the above for a period not exceeding two consecutive months. *** Written notice of any injury fatal or not fatal, or of any illness for which claim can be made, must be given to the company at Saginaw, Michigan, within ten days from date of accident or beginning of illness. Failure on the part of the assured or the beneficiary to comply strictly with such notice requirement shall limit the liability of the company to one-fifth the amount which would otherwise be payable under this policy. An agent has no authority to change this policy nor to waive any of its conditions. Notice to or from any agent or knowledge acquired by him shall not be held to effect a change or waiver of this policy or any condition thereof. No assignment or change in its conditions shall be valid unless agreed to in writing by the president, vice president, or secretary of the company and endorsed hereon." We have italicized the words most important to the decision of the case. In an action in a magistrate's court, judgment in favor of the plaintiff was recovered for an illness. The plaintiff testified he became sick August 16, 1906, and, after being in bed 31 days, resumed work October 10, 1906. The attendance of a physician did not begin until the 21st of August. The plaintiff made no personal report of his illness to the insurance company until September 28, 1906, but on August 27th he notified defendant's local collector, who on the same day mailed a letter to the company giving notice of the sickness.

We first consider the case on the theory adopted by the magistrate and the circuit court, that the beginning of the illness contemplated by the policy was August 16th, the first day of plaintiff's sickness. The circuit court in affirming the judgment of the magistrate held the provision of the policy above quoted, as to time in which notice of sickness should be given, to be without effect and void, because unreasonable. We think this conclusion of the circuit judge was clearly erroneous. It concerns, not only the constitutional rights, but in the highest degree the business prosperity of the people, that freedom of contract should be preserved inviolate. It is true freedom to contract is not unlimited, for the lawmaking branch of the government may impose such limitations as can be reasonably considered to be for the public health, safety, or morals. Rose v. Harllee, 69 S.C. 527, 48 S.E. 541; Johnson Co. v. Spartan Mills, 68 S.C. 339, 47 S.E. 695; Lawton v. Steele, 152 U.S. 135, 14 S.Ct. 499, 38 L.Ed. 385. So, also, the judicial department of the government may refuse to enforce contracts recognized by the people at large as vicious in themselves, and therefore opposed to public policy. But the General Assembly has not undertaken to forbid such a contract as the parties here made, and it is certainly not possible to point out any feature which could warrant the court in declaring it vicious, and tending to the public detriment. If the provision of the contract under consideration were improvident or foolish, that would be no ground for the courts to refuse to enforce it. Attempts by courts to relieve parties from onerous contracts merely because they have entered into them heedlessly and improvidently are not only without warrant of law, but against the public interest; for such attempts tend to impair that general confidence in the certainty of contractual relations upon which material prosperity depends. In addition to that, nothing so encourages and increases heedlessness and improvidence as the expectation of being relieved from their consequences.

But even if the court could relieve against a contract merely because it contained clauses which in the view of the court should be considered unequal or unreasonable, such judicial power could not be invoked...