Mandles v. Guardian Life Ins. Co. of America

• Decision Date: 19 November 1940
• Docket Number: No. 2128,2129.,2128
• Citation: 115 F.2d 994
• Parties: MANDLES et al. v. GUARDIAN LIFE INS. CO. OF AMERICA (two cases).
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit

115 F.2d 994 (1940)

MANDLES et al. v. GUARDIAN LIFE INS. CO. OF AMERICA (two cases).

Nos. 2128, 2129.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit.

November 19, 1940.

Ira C. Rothgerber, Jr., of Denver, Colo. (Walter M. Appel and Ira C. Rothgerber, both of Denver, Colo., on the brief), for appellants.

Lowell White, of Denver, Colo., for appellee.

Before PHILLIPS, BRATTON, and MURRAH, Circuit Judges.

MURRAH, Circuit Judge.

The two cases involve the same subject matter and have been consolidated for trial and review.

The trial court sustained a motion to dismiss the complaint. The allegations of the complaint, well pleaded, are admitted thereby and constitute the facts on review. The complaint alleges that the appellant is the beneficiary under a policy of life insurance written on the life of Bessie M. Rude, by the appellee in the sum of $10,000.

The policy provided for double indemnity in the event of death while the policy was in force, if "such death resulted directly and independently of all other causes from bodily injuries effected solely through external, violent, and accidental means, * * provided, however, that the Double Indemnity shall not be payable if the insured's death resulted from suicide, whether sane or insane, * * * or directly or indirectly from bodily or mental infirmity or illness or disease in any form."

Complaint further alleges that the insured was adjudged a mental incompetent by the County Court at Denver, Colorado, after issuance of said policy and was taken to an institution at Edgewater, Colorado, in 1936, and nurses were employed to care for her. That on March 21, 1936, insured complained to the nurses that she was being annoyed by voices and wanted to complain to police. She was induced to go to her bedroom; "while she was in the bedroom she went to the window for the purpose of calling the police for help or reporting, as she claimed, the annoyance to which she was being subjected, and thrust her arm through the lower pane of the window. She cut her arm on the jagged portions of the window pane. A doctor was called, and the wounds were dressed, but as a direct result of the cuts or scratches, which she had so received, she became ill, septicemia set in, and she died of septicemia at Denver, Colorado, on March 25, 1936."

The company paid the face amount of the policy. The appellant sued under the double indemnity clause thereof.

The question presented is whether or not the allegations of the petition state a cause of action on which relief can be granted and thereby involves the interpretation of the double indemnity clause of the policy.

No cases from the Supreme Court of the State of Colorado have been cited and we have found none which control or bear upon the facts presented. It is therefore necessary to look elsewhere for decisions which control the question before us. Our quest for a correct result, from the facts before us, is however, made difficult by the innumerable decisions from many jurisdictions, both federal and state, which appear to bear upon the subject and which it is urged control the facts here. Our task would not be great if we could find application in some of the well-established rules in cases cited as controlling.

The question of what constitutes an "accidental injury resulting in death", or "death resulting from accidental means", within the more or less categorical provisions of a life insurance policy has been the subject of prolific litigation and has resulted in some sharp conflict along the way,¹ but the modern trend in both state and federal cases is rapidly approaching uniformity because the particular language employed in this class of insurance contracts has been constantly changed to meet the standards of coverage, in conformity with the adjudicated cases.² It is elementary that because the policy of insurance is couched in the language of the draftor of the policy, the meaning and scope, is construed strictly against the draftor and in the event of an ambiguity appearing upon its face, the ambiguity will be construed in favor of the insured.³ It is equally clear that the rule should not be used to create the ambiguity in order to permit application of the same. The test which shall govern the interpretation of the words, or language employed, is one that is employed "in the common speech of men"; they are to be given their plain, literal meaning in their ordinary sense.⁴

This means that the intention of the parties, as established by the written contract, when construed in the light of the objects and purposes obviously intended, is largely controlling. We must, therefore, first look to the contract and judge the extent of the coverage created thereby, in the light of adjudicated cases.

It is incumbent upon the appellant to allege facts sufficient to show that the loss was a peril insured against, or that the loss was within the coverage of the policy.

The premise fairly stated is: to come within the coverage of the policy, death must have resulted directly and independently of all other causes from bodily injury effected solely through external, violent and accidental means, and not caused directly or indirectly from bodily or mental infirmity or illness or disease in any form. It may also be fairly stated that the insured, at the time the events which resulted in death occurred, was suffering from a mental infirmity; that a delusion actuated or induced her to thrust her arm through the window pane, she received a bodily injury which resulted in septicemia and death.

The question, therefore, for us to determine from these facts is, did death result directly and independently from all other causes from bodily injuries effected solely through external, violent and accidental means, and not indirectly from mental infirmity; and whether in the last analysis this presents a jury question. This brings us to the consideration of the much discussed question of "proximate and remote cause"; and, in this particular case, the determination of the question of how far we shall go in the line of causation in finding "the real", the "efficient", the "immediate" and the "proximate cause of death". Since Lord Bacon said "it were infinite for the law to consider the causes of causes, and their inpulsions one of another; therefore it contenteth itself with the immediate cause", many cases have stemmed from this basic maxim.⁵ This rule has been perpetuated in cases where different forces and conditions concur, or co-operate, in producing a result; one of which is accidental and the other disease, either pre-existing latent, or followed as a natural but not necessary consequence. In such cases it is often times difficult to determine which is properly to be considered the "efficient" or "proximate cause". This has involved the necessity to decide whether the accident was the direct cause and disease the remote cause, or whether the disease is the direct cause and the accident the remote cause. In each of the adjudicated cases, which we have examined, wherein a jury question was found to exist, the accident acted upon the preexisting disease or illness, or the two concurred or co-operated in producing the result. In deciding this question the accident or condition next in time or in space to the result is not necessarily deemed to be the proximate cause. This class of cases may be divided into several categories. See Browning v. Equitable Assurance Society, supra.⁶

From noted cases it appears that modern authority has departed from the rule announced in National Masonic Association v. Shryock, 8 Cir., 73 F. 774, and cases decided on the rule established therein,⁷ wherein Judge Sanborn announced the rule that if the insured were afflicted with a disease or bodily infirmity which caused the death the company was not liable, if at the time of the accident the insured was suffering from a pre-existing disease or bodily infirmity and if the accident would not have caused the death if he had not been afflicted with the disease or infirmity, but death resulted because the accident aggravated the effects of the disease, or the disease aggravated the effects of the accident; in which case, death would not be the result of the accident alone but would be caused partly by disease and partly by the accident. In such circumstances it was held that no jury question existed. See Preferred Accident Insurance Co. of New York v. Combs, supra.

The appellant contends that this case falls within the category of cases exemplified by Commercial Casualty Ins. Co. v. Stinson, supra, wherein cause of death is a jury question when the accident and disease concur or co-operate in producing the result, or when the accident acted upon, or accelerated a pre-existing condition and without which accident, death would not have occurred.⁸

The rule is well stated in Kelly v. Prudential Insurance Company of America, supra 334 Pa. 143, 6 A.2d 59, wherein it is stated: "It is clear that if the physical condition of the insured is merely weakened or his resistance to disease lowered by a pre-existing ailment or disease incident to advancing age, which creates a bodily condition of a passive nature not alone sufficient to cause death, this fact will not prevent recovery for death resulting from accidental means under an insurance policy providing indemnity therefor, even though death resulting indirectly from bodily or mental infirmity or disease is excluded as a risk, provided the accident sets in progress the chain of events leading directly to death".⁹

Superficially the Bohaker v. Travelers' Ins. Company and Kelly v. Prudential Ins. Company, supra, cases support the contention of the appellant and with the reasoning of these cases we are in complete accord. The distinction lies in the salient fact that in the Bohaker case the insured was suffering from typhoid fever, confined to his bed, and left alone. By some unknown means he fell from an open window and was found on the...