Huguenin v. Continental Casualty Co.
| Decision Date | 24 March 1913 |
| Citation | 77 S.E. 751,94 S.C. 138 |
| Parties | HUGUENIN v. CONTINENTAL CASUALTY CO. |
| Court | South Carolina Supreme Court |
Appeal from Common Pleas Circuit Court of Colleton County; R. W Memminger, Judge.
Action by Nancy Huguenin, Administratrix, against the Continental Casualty Company. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals. Affirmed.
Heber R. Padgett, of Walterboro, for appellant. J. F. Brown, of Whitehall, for respondent.
William Huguenin, late of Colleton county, took out a policy of casualty insurance on March 23, 1910, and died July 23, 1911. In this action on the policy, brought by his wife, in her own right and as administratrix of his estate, the issues of law and fact were referred by consent to C. G. Henderson, Esq. who made a report in which he found that the only issue in the case was whether the death of Huguenin was due to casualty or to ordinary sickness. Holding that it was due to ordinary sickness and not to casualty, the referee found that, under the terms of the policy, the recovery should be for only $40, the amount specified in the contract as idemnity for one month's sickness, and not for $400, the amount recoverable for a casualty producing total continuous disability after the injury. On the point that this was the sole issue, there was no exception to the master's report. The circuit judge, on consideration of the evidence held that Huguenin's death was due to a casualty which produced sickness up to the time of his death, and decreed that the plaintiff recover $400.
This being a law case. this court cannot disturb the findings of fact of the circuit court, if they have any support in the evidence.
The testimony is very meager, but Major Simmons, a farm laborer, testified that Huguenin had a fall from a wagon, and the wife of the deceased testified that the fall brought on his sickness; and there was no evidence whatever that the deceased did, or was able to do, any work after the fall. Dr. Es'Dorn testified that, when he was called in to see Huguenin, he found him suffering from acute inflammation of the liver, which seemed to have been caused by some external injury. The serious nature of the inflammation produced by the injury certainly afforded some ground for the circuit judge to conclude that the deceased was entirely disabled after the accident which caused it. The fact that the physician testified that such injuries would render the recipient of them...
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