Lickleider v. Iowa State Traveling Men's Ass'n

• Decision Date: 09 February 1918
• Docket Number: No. 30036.,30036.
• Citation: 166 N.W. 363,184 Iowa 423
• Parties: LICKLEIDER v. IOWA STATE TRAVELING MEN'S ASS'N.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

184 Iowa 423

166 N.W. 363

LICKLEIDER

v.IOWA STATE TRAVELING MEN'S ASS'N.

No. 30036.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Feb. 9, 1918.

Appeal from District Court, Polk County; Charles A. Dudley, Judge.

Action at law to recover upon a policy or certificate of accident insurance. There was a directed verdict and judgment for the defendant and plaintiff appeals. Reversed and remanded on rehearing.

For opinion on original hearing, see 151 N. W. 479.Clinton L. Nourse, of Des Moines, for appellant.

Sullivan & Sullivan, of Des Moines, for appellee.

WEAVER, J.

The defendant, an accident insurance association, issued its policy or certificate to one Bert A. Dunbar insuring him against bodily injury occurring through external, violent and accidental means, and resulting independently of all other causes in death within 90 days from the date of the accident. While this insurance was in full force and the insured was a member of the association in good standing Dunbar died, and this action was brought on said contract of insurance by the beneficiary therein named on the theory that his death was the result of accidental bodily injury within the scope and meaning of said contract. The defendant resists payment of the insurance, alleging that Dunbar's death resulted from natural causes, disease or bodily infirmity or voluntary overexertion, and that for death so resulting there is no liability under the terms of the policy.

The policy was issued November 21, 1910. It provides against liability of the insurer for death of the insured resulting wholly or partially, directly or indirectly, from disease or bodily infirmity, or from voluntary overexertion. At the date of the contract Dunbar was in apparently strong and robust health. He was a traveling salesman for a wholesale grocery house at Des Moines, and had his headquarters at Carroll, Iowa. In his business he kept and made frequent use of an automobile. On July 1, 1913, with another man and two women as guests in his car he set out for a trip to Glidden and Coon Rapids, and thence back to Carroll. On the road one of the tires on the car sustained a puncture, and Dunbar, with the aid of the other man, took off the tire, patched the inner tube, and then, replacing the tube and casing on the wheel, started to complete the trip. It soon appeared that the puncture had not been effectually mended, and stopping again he, working alone, attempted once more to remove the tire, but for some reason it resisted his efforts. Kneeling upon one knee he took hold of the casing with both hands, pulling and jerking at it for some time, when it came off with a snap and with such suddenness as to cause him to slip or stagger back with the tire in his hands. He immediately turned pale, complained of being very ill, put his hand to his head, and laid down on the ground. Help was called, and he was removed to a hotel, where he died about an hour later. A post mortem examination was made of the body by three physicians who found that the immediate cause of death was due to a blood clot in the right coronary artery near the heart. Two of them gave it as their opinion that Dunbar died of arteriosclerosis and obstruction of the coronary artery, that he was afflicted with abnormal arteriosclerosis, and that the coronary arteries were quite sclerotic. On the other hand, the third doctor testified that he found no more arteriosclerosis than is usual with a man of the size and age of the deceased. He further said that blood clot was due to inflammation or injury to the artery, and that he did not observe or find any such inflammation in the body.

The foregoing is a brief summary of the record as to the facts, but is sufficiently complete for our consideration of the question whether they made a case upon which plaintiff was entitled to go to the jury.

[1][2] When the issues joined are viewed in connection with the testimony of the medical experts, it is too clear for argument that the court could not properly rule as a matter of law that Dunbar's death was the result of disease or other natural causes, and we do not understand that such was the position of the trial court, or that it is insisted upon in this court. It is quite apparent that the direction of a verdict in defendant's favor was grounded upon the thought either that the insured did not come to his death through accidental means, or that his death resulted from voluntary overexertion. Upon the first of these propositions the burden was doubtless upon plaintiff to present evidence from which the jury could properly find that the death of the deceased resulted from injuries of the nature or kind against which the policy insured him, but the claim or assertion that he died from overexertion is in the nature of an affirmative defense upon which the defendant assumes the burden. We therefore turn to a consideration of those features of the case as shown by the record.

I. Was there any evidence on which the jury could be permitted to find that the death of Dunbar was the result of external, violent, and accidental means independent of all other causes?

[3] As we have seen, it is not open to doubt that the question whether he died of disease was for the jury. The only evidence tending to show that the death was the natural result of disease is that of the two physicians who express the opinion that he died of arteriosclerosis, which, as we understand it, is the technical term for hardening of the arteries, but this is met by other evidence that the sclerosis discovered in this case was such only as is ordinarily found in men of his size and age, and the weight and influence to be accorded to these conflicting opinions was for the jury. If the arteries of the deceased were sclerotic, but the sclerosis was such only as is the natural or usual accompaniment of increasing years, the fact, if it be a fact, that a bodily injury sustained by him would more likely be fatal than would be the case if such condition did not exist would not prevent a recovery on the policy should it otherwise appear that the injury was of the nature or kind described in the contract. Freeman v. Association, 156 Mass. 351, 30 N. E. 1013, 17 L. R. A. 753.

[4][5] Coming then to the question whether there is in this record any testimony tending to show that the death of the insured was the result of injury from accidental cause or means, we confront again the oft-recurring inquiry: What is an accident? And when is a means or cause accidental within the meaning of the contract? It is not always easy to define a word, though one of familiar, common, and daily use, in other words or terms which shall at once be so clear, accurate, and comprehensive as to be everywhere and always applicable. Attempts to accomplish such a definition quite as often serve to confuse as to elucidate, and usually courts can well assume that common speech and common usage are as little susceptible to judicial explanation as an axiom in mathematics is susceptible to improvement by changing its form of expression. One thing at least is well settled, the words “accident” and “accidental” have never acquired any technical meaning in law, and when used in an insurance contract they are to be construed and considered according to the common speech and common usage of people generally. Hundreds of attempts have been made by the courts to define these words in other terms, and while some of them may be regarded helpful in so far as they adhere to popular usage, others have served only to confuse the situation, if not in fact to grossly mislead. Certain it is that no attempt in this direction is in any respect an improvement upon the definition found in our standard lexicons, and from these by way of illustration we quote from Webster's International Dictionary:

“ Accident. An event which takes place without one's foresight or expectation; an undesigned, sudden, and unexpected event; chance; contingency.”

“ Accidental. Happening by chance or unexpectedly. Synonyms: Undesigned; unintentional; unforeseen; unpremeditated.”

This is also the meaning given to these words in Association v. Barry, 131 U. S. 100, 9 Sup. Ct. 755, 33 L. Ed. 60. It is an event from an unknown cause or an unexpected event from a known cause. Raiford v. Wilmington, 130 N. C. 597, 41 S. E. 806. A thing done or disaster caused without design or intention. Blue Wing v. Buckner, 12 B. Mon. (51 Ky.) 250. An unusual and unexpected result attending the performance of a usual or necessary act. Insurance Co. v. Martin, 32 Md. 310. Mr. Cooley in his very thorough compilation of the cases says that an event which the actor did not intend to produce is produced by accidental means. 4 Cooley's Briefs, 3156. The same thought is adopted though variously expressed in Joyce on Insurance, § 2863; Bouvier's Law Dictionary; Kerr on Insurance, p. 380; Richards v. Insurance Co., 89 Cal. 170, 26 Pac. 762, 23 Am. St. Rep. 455; 2 Bacon's Ben. Societies, § 482; Association v. Drummond, 56 Neb. 235, 76 N. W. 562. The list could be extended quite indefinitely, but it can hardly be denied that these authorities cited from courts and writers of the highest standing make clear that the meaning of these words in law differs in no essential respect from the meaning attributed to them in popular speech.

[6] There is, however, another alleged definition which has had a degree of judicial sanction which ought not to be passed without notice. According to this definition, if correctly interpreted by counsel for the defense, an injury happening to the insured through his own voluntary act is not an accident, nor is his hurt to be attributed to accidental means--a proposition which is wholly at variance with every statement of the true rule as illustrated in the numerous authorities above cited. It may be, and it is true, that if the insured does a voluntary act, the natural, usual, and to be expected result of which is to bring injury upon himself, then a death so...