Lorentz v. Aetna Life Ins. Co. of Hartford, Conn.

• Decision Date: 24 April 1936
• Docket Number: 30822.
• Parties: LORENTZ v. AETNA LIFE INS. CO. OF HARTFORD, CONN.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

266 N.W. 699

197 Minn. 205

LORENTZ v. AETNA LIFE INS. CO. OF HARTFORD, CONN.

No. 30822.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

April 24, 1936

Appeal from District Court, Crow Wing County; Graham M. Torrance Judge.

Action by William Lorentz against the AEtna Life Insurance Company of Hartford, Conn. From an order denying defendant's motion in the alternative for judgment notwithstanding verdict for plaintiff, or a new trial, defendant appeals.

Affirmed.

Syllabus by the Court .

1. The court correctly instructed the jury that, in an insurance policy, total and permanent disability so as to prevent the insured from engaging in any occupation and performing any work for compensation or profit meant any occupation similar to that in which he was ordinarily engaged before the disability, or one for which he may fit himself within a reasonable time; and to determine whether disabled within that meaning consideration should be given to his then occupation, his training, schooling, age and all the facts bearing upon what work he might fit himself for within a reasonable time.

2. A requested instruction was properly denied because not applicable under the evidence.

3. The evidence sustains the verdict that plaintiff was totally and presumably permanently disabled within the meaning of the insurance policy, thereby maturing it; and defendant was not entitled to judgment notwithstanding the verdict.

Wieland & Sullivan, of Brainerd, for appellant.

Ryan, Ryan & Ryan, of Brainerd, and W. C. Kelehan, of Staples, for respondent.

HOLT Justice.

Defendant appeals from the order denying its motion in the alternative for judgment notwithstanding the verdict or a new trial.

Defendant is a life insurance company and issued a group life insurance policy of $2,500 to plaintiff as an employee of the Northern Pacific Railway Company. Plaintiff claims that he has become totally and permanently disabled before reaching the age of 60 years, and hence the sum of $2,500 is due him under this provision of the policy: ‘ If any employee, before attaining the age of sixty years and while insured hereunder, becomes totally disabled and presumably will thereafter during life be unable to engage in any occupation or employment for wage or profit, or shall meet with the entire and irrecoverable loss of the sight of both eyes or of the use of both hands or both feet or of one hand and one foot, such employee shall be deemed to be totally and permanently disabled. Upon receipt at the Home Office of the Company, during the continuance of insurance on such employe, of satisfactory evidence of such disability, the company will waive further payment of premium for the insurance upon the life of such employe and in lieu of all other benefits provided for on such life under this policy will pay the amount of the insurance in force upon such life at the time such disability commenced.’

Plaintiff, now about 40 years of age, had been working as a wrecking engineer for the Northern Pacific Railway Company, when in October, 1929, a door of a gondola car weighing about 1,200 pounds fell on his back while in a prone position. Plaintiff was rendered unconscious. He was taken to an emergency hospital at Staples, where the accident occurred, and afterwards removed to the hospital of the railway company at St. Paul. One leg was paralyzed for a month, and the other until in January, 1930. In March he went back to work, and worked on and off until November 11, 1933, when he fell off the side ladder of a box car and injured his knee. This required treatment by the local doctor at Staples, and also at the company's hospital at St. Paul for an operation on the knee. Plaintiff testified that he was unable to do the work of a railroad employee. It appears that before plaintiff was injured the second time he was interested with others in a petroleum products distributing business and an ordinary filling station at Staples. This he was compelled to take over, and employed one Garland to conduct it while plaintiff continued to work for the railway company. Later he leased a filling station at Browerville and equipped it, and built and conducted one at Verndale.

The assignments of errors challenge (a) an instruction given the jury; (b) the failure to charge the jury that if they found that plaintiff managed or carried on his oil business he was not totally and permanently disabled, within the meaning of the policy; and (c) the refusal to grant judgment notwithstanding the verdict.

The attacked instruction reads: ‘ The existence of total and permanent disability so as to prevent the plaintiff from engaging in any occupation and performing any work for compensation or profit must mean any occupation similar to that in which he was ordinarily engaged before the accident or for which he may be capable of fitting himself within a reasonable time. In determining whether the plaintiff is disabled within the meaning of the policy, as I have given it to you, you should take into consideration the plaintiff's occupation at the time he was injured, his training in life, his schooling, his present physical condition, his age and all other facts presented by the evidence bearing upon what work he might fit himself for within a reasonable time.’ It was, perhaps not quite correct to stress the time of the accident, for the maturing of the policy did not depend upon a disabling accidental injury, but upon the event of total disability for work from whatever cause. But the instruction was in the main correct, and not in conflict with these three cases relied on by defendant. Lobdill v....