Knowlton v. Equitable Acc. Ass'n

• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts
• Writing for the Court: HOLMES, C.J.
• Citation: 175 Mass. 196,55 N.E. 890
• Parties: KNOWLTON, Atty. Gen. v. EQUITABLE ACC. ASS'N.
• Decision Date: 04 January 1900

175 Mass. 196

55 N.E. 890

KNOWLTON, Atty. Gen.
v.
EQUITABLE ACC. ASS'N.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

January 4, 1900

COUNSEL [175 Mass. 197]

[55 N.E. 890] J. H. Appleton, for petitioner.

Hesseltine & Hesseltine, for defendant.

OPINION

HOLMES, C.J.

It may be assumed that the time when the bill was filed, viz. August 9, 1898, is the time at which the [175 Mass. 198] claims must have accrued, in order to come within St. 1890, c. 421, § 14. Attorney General v. Massachusetts Benefit Life Ass'n, 171 Mass. 193, 194, 50 N.E. 520.

1. At that time the accident had happened which resulted in the death of West, and it is contended that the claim had accrued, although the death did not occur until August 31st. It is argued that the insurance is 'against bodily injuries,' that the liability arose with the injury, and that all that happened afterwards was simply the inevitable process of mechanical cause and effect, as theoretically certain from the beginning as an eclipse,--conditions of an action perhaps, but not of liability. We are unable to agree to the argument. The contract is not a general undertaking to pay for bodily injuries, notwithstanding the introductory words. It is only an insurance against them 'in the manner following,' namely, an undertaking to pay so much for loss of time on certain conditions, so much for loss of a hand, so much for death, etc. The time or the hand must be lost, or the death must have happened, before the company's obligation to pay arises. That it is theoretically certain to happen is not enough, either by the words of the policy or the reason of the thing. If theoretic certainty were enough, the same reasoning might regard the claim as accrued from the making of the policy, or, if we reject free will, from the beginning of the world. The law does not trouble itself very much with such philosophic difficulties. The practical uncertainty [55 N.E. 891] arising from the ignorance of men is enough to be uncertainty in its eyes. A policy of insurance or a wager is good, so far as this objection goes, upon a future event depending upon purely mechanical sequences, or, for the matter of that, upon a fact in the past. Striking a mortal blow does not get its character at common law as murder or otherwise, until the death has happened within or beyond the year and day. 4 Bl. Comm. 197, 198. If the theoretic certainty of the event gave character to the act, the length of time before it...