Dozier v. Fidelity & Cas. Co.

• Decision Date: 08 June 1891
• Citation: 46 F. 446
• Parties: DOZIER v. FIDELITY & CASUALTY CO. OF NEW YORK.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Missouri

46 F. 446

DOZIER v. FIDELITY & CASUALTY CO. OF NEW YORK.

United States Circuit Court, W.D. Missouri, Western Division.

June 8, 1891

John L Pealk, for plaintiff.

Warner Dean & Hagerman, for defendant.

PHILIPS J.

(after stating the facts as above.) The question to be decided is whether or not death resulting from sun-stroke or heat prostration comes within the means of injury insured against. This precise question does not appear to have been passed upon by any American court, but it is not too much to say, perhaps, that it may be regarded as settled in the negative in England by the opinion of Chief Justice COCKBURN in Sinclair v. Assurance Co., 3 El.& El. 478. The policy there assured against 'any personal injury from, or by reason or in consequence of, any accident which should happen to him upon any ocean, sea river, or lake. ' The assured was master of the ship Sultan, and in the course of his voyage he arrived in the Cochin river, on the south-west coast of India, and in the usual course of his vocation he was smitten by a sun-stroke, from the effect of which he died. On full consideration, it was held that his death must be considered as having resulted from a natural cause, and not from accident, within the meaning of the policy. The policy there did not, as here, contain the words 'external, violent,' and yet the learned chief justice held that the term 'accident,' as used in the policy, involved necessarily some violence, casualty, or vis major. He says:

'We cannot think disease produced by the action of a known cause can be considered as accidental. Thus disease or death engendered by exposure to heat, cold, damp, the vicissitudes of climate, or atmospheric influences, cannot, we think, properly be said to be accidental; unless, at all events, the exposure is itself brought about by circumstances which may give it the character of accident. Thus, by way of illustration, if, from the effects of ordinary exposure to the elements, such as is common in the course of navigation, a mariner should catch cold and die, such death would not be accidental; although if, being obliged by shipwreck or other disasters to quit the ship, and take to the sea in an open boat, he remained exposed to wet and cold for some time, and death ensued therefrom, the death might properly be held to be the result of accident. It is true that, in one sense, disease or death through the direct effect of a known natural cause, such as we have referred to, may be said to be accidental, inasmuch as it is uncertain beforehand whether the effect will ensue in any particular case. Exposed to the same malaria or infection, one man escapes, another succumbs. Yet diseases thus arising have always been considered, not as accidental, but as proceeding from natural causes. In the present instance, the disease called 'sun-stroke,' although the name would at first seem to imply something of external violence, is, so far as we are informed, an inflammatory disease of the brain, brought on by exposure to the too intense heat of the sun's rays. It is a disease to which persons exposing themselves to the sun in a tropical climate are more or less liable, just as persons exposed to the other natural causes to which we have referred are liable to disastrous consequences therefrom. The deceased, in the discharge of his ordinary duties about his ship, became thus affected, and so died.'

According to this high authority, a disease produced by a known cause cannot be considered as accidental. This conclusion has been accepted as authoritative by text-writers. Bliss, Ins. Sec 399; May, Ins. (3d Ed.) Sec. 519. If sun-stroke or heat prostration is properly classified among diseases, it is expressly excepted from the operation of this policy. It is discussed in works on Pathology under the head of diseases of the brain. Niemeyer in his work on Practical Medicine, (vol. 2, pages 181, 182,) treats of it under the head of 'Diseases of the Brain.' He asserts that the investigations and experiments of so renowned a specialist as Obernier have entirely exploded the once common notion that sun-stroke, or insolatio, depends on hyperaemia of the brain, induced by the action of the sun's rays on the head. The rays of the sun are not essential to it. 'It is now known that in this disease there is a serious derangement of the heat-producing function, and a great rise in the bodily temperature, which, in extreme case, may reach 109 degrees or 110 degrees Fahr. ' And he concludes that, while nothing is yet known of the anatomical lesions upon which sun-stroke depends, yet' the disorder has a definite material basis. ' A standard Encyclopaedia (Britannica, vol. 22, p. 666) terms it a 'disease,' and prescribes its methods of treatment. From this and other standard works we collate the following facts: That it is a term applied to the effects upon the central nervous system, and through it upon other organs of the body, by exposure to the sun or to over-heated air. 'Although most frequently observed in tropical regions, this disease also occurs in temperate climates during hot weather. A moist condition of the atmosphere, which interferes with the cooling of the overheated body, greatly increases the liability to suffer from this ailment. ' The common notion that sun-stroke or 'heat prostration,' as it is termed in the petition, comes like a stroke of lightning from a piercing ray of the sun, is utterly at fault. It affects persons frequently during the night. It often results from overcrowding in quarters, as in the case of soldiers in...