Leland v. Order of United Commercial Travelers of America

• Decision Date: 10 October 1919
• Parties: LELAND v. ORDER OF UNITED COMMERCIAL TRAVELERS OF AMERICA.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

233 Mass. 558

124 N.E. 517

LELAND

v.ORDER OF UNITED COMMERCIAL TRAVELERS OF AMERICA.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Hampden.

Oct. 10, 1919.

Report from Superior Court, Hampden County; Christopher T. Callahan, Judge.

Action by Nellie J. Leland against the Order of United Commercial Travelers of America, resulting in directed verdict for defendant, the parties agreeing the case should be reported to the Supreme Judicial Court on certain terms. Repeated motions by plaintiff for extension of time for filing exceptions were allowed, on the assumption they were motions to extend time for filing report, and defendant's motion for judgment on the verdict was denied, and defendant excepts; the case being reported to the Supreme Judicial Court. Exceptions overruled, and judgment directed on the verdict.

Pitt F. Drew, of Boston, and Dunnett, Shields & Conant, of St. Johnsburg, Vt., for plaintiff.

Edward A. McClintock and David B. Hoar, both of Springfield, for defendant.

RUGG, C. J.

During the trial of this case the presiding judge suggested that he would order a verdict for the defendant and that the case be reported upon a stipulation as to its final disposition in accordance with the ultimate decision as to the questions of law. At the conclusion of the evidence a verdict was ordered for the defendant and the parties agreed that the case should be reported to this court upon terms stated. No exceptions were saved on this point. Thereafter the plaintiff presented a motion for extending the time for ‘filing her exceptions,’ which was allowed by the judge, without close examination, on the assumption that it was a motion to extend time for filing a report. No correction of the record has been made in order to make it conform to the intention of the court. See Randall v. Peerless Motor Car Co., 212 Mass. 352, 387, 99 N. E. 221; Maggelet's Case, 228 Mass. 57, 63, 116 N. E. 972, L. R. A. 1918F, 864;Farris v. St. Paul's Baptist Church, 220 Mass. 356, 359, 107 N. E. 955;Perkins v. Perkins, 225 Mass. 392, 114 N. E. 713. The defendant contends that under rule 55¹ of the 1915 superior court rules the report is not rightly before us, because the time within which the report might have been filed had expired before it actually was filed, relying in this connection on Hack v. Nason, 190 Mass. 346, 76 N. E. 906.

This contention cannot be supported. The superior court apart from rule has power under R. L. c. 173, § 105, as amended by St. 1917, c. 345, to report cases as therein specified without special limit as to time. Strong v. Carver Cotton Gin Co., 202 Mass. 209, 212, 88 N. E. 582;Lee v. Blodget, 214 Mass. 374, 102 N. E. 67. Rule 55 was not intended to deprive the judge of this power to make a report in the exercise of sound discretion in order to forward the ends of justice. Its purport is to put upon a plaintiff a definite duty in regard to the preparation of reports and to confine his absolute rights within the rational limits there established, to the end that unreasonable delay may be prevented. See Frank, Petitioner, 213 Mass. 194, 99 N. E. 968. The rule was not designed to tie the hands of the judge so that he cannot do what justice requires as between the parties in cases where grave and doubtful questions of law are involved. Its words do not require such a result. The judge may well, where there has been failure to comply with the rule, decline to exercise his discretion to report a case. But he is not thereby precluded from making a report if in the exercise of wise discretion it ought to be made. The case is before us rightly.

This is an action of contract brought by the beneficiary on an accident insurance certificate issued by the defendant. The contract, amongst other stipulations, provided for indemnification, to the extent there specified, to the insured or beneficiary--

‘against the results of bodily injury * * * effected through external, violent and accidental means, herein termed the accident, which shall be occasioned by the said accident alone and independent of all other causes.’

Another provision was to the effect that the benefits should not be payable by the defendant--

‘unless external, violent and accidental means, producing bodily injury, is the proximate, sole and only cause of the death, disability or loss.’

The insured was a commercial traveler and continued his work regularly until the Saturday before his death. He was apparently in good health, and had been for many years, save a recent cold. On Monday morning he tripped and fell twice, once becoming unconscious, as he was returning to his chamber from the cellar of his home where he had done something about the heater. He was assisted to bed, regained consciousness, complained of pain in his right side, was treated by a physician, had difficulty in breathing, and died that same evening. Slight abrasions observed on the body apparently are conceded to have resulted from the fall and not in themselves to have been a cause of the death. An autopsy was had, which revealed abnormal and unnatural conditions in the form of heart lesions, lung lesions, and lesions of other parts of the circulatory system. It was plainly evident that these conditions had relation to the death and alone were sufficient to cause death, and that some of them had existed for a considerable period, probably more than a year. A part of the heart was normal and the right part ‘very markedly, clearly and regularly dilated all the way around.’ This condition was so bad that, if it were in existence before the fall, the deceased could not have been expected to have lived very long. A diseased condition of the lungs also was disclosed. The physicians whose testimony was most favorable to the plaintiff gave as their opinion that the death resulted from a sudden call for more effort than the heart could make, or from acute heart failure at the time of the fall, and that the shock of the fall precipitated death, because an individual with a heart damaged to the extent of that of the deceased is disposed to acute failure or lack of working power from a shock or over-exertion of any kind.

There is testimony of one of the experts which appears, standing by itself alone, to have been somewhat equivocal in respect of the dilated condition of the heart and to be susceptible of the construction that that condition might have, and perhaps in his opinion did, result from the fall and did not antedate the fall. This witness testified that--

‘the cause of death, medically speaking, was myocardial insufficiency and acute dilation. Yocardial insufficiency is such a relation between the condition of the heart muscle and the tasks which it is called upon to do that it is unable to do them.’

This witness also gave evidence to the effect that ‘some of the lesions of the heart and lungs without doubt had existed before’ the time of the fall and he thought ‘might have existed for more than a year probably, * * * were probably constantly progressing.’ He testified in considerable detail to a diseased condition in both lungs of the deceased known as ‘emphysema,’ the result of which was ‘an excessive demand made directly on the right side of the heart,’ the side excessively dilated, and gave it as his opinion that the deceased was suffering at the time of and for some time previous to the fall from chronic emphysema. Further questions and answers were as follows:

‘Isn't it true that the most that can possibly be claimed in this case with reference to that fall, or either or both of the two falls alluded to, is that they aggravated and made fatal an already existing chronic disease?’ The answer was ‘Yes.’

In substance but in slightly varying form this question and answer were repeated. Then in answer to the question:

‘You don't want the jury or the court to understand your testimony as being any stronger than that?’ the witness replied, ‘No, I don't.’

If it can be contended that the earlier testimony of the...