Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company v. Ludwig

Citation426 U.S. 479,48 L.Ed.2d 784,96 S.Ct. 2158
Decision Date14 June 1976
Docket NumberNo. 75-1504,75-1504
PartiesMASSACHUSETTS MUTUAL LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY v. Benno P. LUDWIG, etc
CourtUnited States Supreme Court

PER CURIAM.

This is a diversity case. Petitioner (the insurer) issued a life insurance policy in Michigan to Dean E. Cane providing for double indemnity if Cane's "death was the result of an injury sustained while the insured was a passenger in or upon a public conveyance then being operated by a common carrier to transport passengers for hire . . .." Cane was killed in Illinois by a freight train while crossing a railroad track in order to board a commuter train which had not yet arrived at the station. The insurer paid Cane's estate ordinary benefits, but denied liability under the double indemnity provision of the policy.

The Administrator of Cane's estate (respondent) sued the insurer in the District Court for the Northern District of Illinois to recover benefits under the double indemnity provision. The District Court held that under Illinois conflict-of-laws rules, the law of the situs of the contract (Michigan) applied, and that under Michigan law the insurer was liable only for ordinary benefits. The administrator appealed. The insurer argued in the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit that the District Court's application and interpretation of Michigan law was correct, and alternatively that Illinois conflict-of-laws rules required application of Illinois not Michigan substantive law in this case, and that under Illinois substantive law its liability was also only for ordinary benefits. The Court of Appeals reversed, 524 F.2d 376 (1975), but without reaching the question of which State's substantive law would be applicable under the Illinois conflicts rule. The court held that the insurer was precluded from arguing on appeal the applicability of Illinois substantive law, because it had not cross-appealed from the District Court's ruling that Michigan law applied. Id., at 379 n. 1.

The Court of Appeals' decision on this issue is plainly at odds with the "inveterate and certain" rule, Morley Co. v. Maryland Cas. Co., 300 U.S. 185, 191, 57 S.Ct. 325, 328, 81 L.Ed. 593 (1937), of United States v. American Ry. Exp. Co., 265 U.S. 425, 435, 44 S.Ct. 560, 564, 68 L.Ed. 1087 (1924), where a unanimous Court said:

"It is true that a party who does not appeal from a final decree of the trial court cannot be heard in opposition thereto when the case is brought here by the appeal of the adverse party. In other...

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    ...follow. We may affirm its judgment on any properly preserved ground that the record supports. Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. v. Ludwig, 426 U.S. 479, 96 S.Ct. 2158, 48 L.Ed.2d 784 (1976). A timely but non-meritorious suit should be cut off at the first opportunity. We therefore inq......
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