Metro. Life Ins. Co. v. Et Ux.
| Decision Date | 22 March 1949 |
| Docket Number | 158/578. |
| Citation | 64 A.2d 639 |
| Parties | METROPOLITAN LIFE INS. CO. v. SINETT et ux. |
| Court | New Jersey Superior Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Syllabus by the Court.
1. It is now the well sustained rule that in actions for the cancellation of life insurance policies in equity it is not obligatory upon the plaintiff to prove that the applicant in the preparation of his application for the policy was motivated by a deliberate intent to deceive.
2. In life insurance a misrepresentation is regarded as material to the risk if the knowledge or ignorance of it would naturally and reasonably influence the judgment of the underwriter in making the contract at all, or in estimating the degree or character of the risk, or in fixing the rate of premium.
3. The terms ‘ailment’ and ‘disease’ are not to be comprehended as embracing merely transitory and temporary illnesses in the sense employed in applications for life insurance.
Suit by Metropolitan Life Insurance Company against Seymore Sinett and Eleanor B. Sinett, his wife, for a rescission and cancellation of a policy on the life of defendant Seymore Sinett.
Judgment for defendants.
Clifford I. Voorhees, of New Brunswick, for plaintiff.
David T. Wilentz, of Perth Amboy (Arthur J. Sills, of Perth Amboy, of counsel), for defendants.
The plaintiff in the prosecution of this action seeks a rescission and cancellation of a policy of life insurance in the sum of $5,000, issued by the plaintiff to the defendant Seymore Sinett on January 23, 1947, in favor of his wife as beneficiary. Intentional fraud and conscious misrepresentation by the assured in procuring the policy is not alleged. It is asserted that the assured made an untruthful representation of material facts in his application for the policy. Vide, Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. v. Tarnowski, 130 N.J.Eq. 1, 20 A.2d 421. I am aware that it is now the well sustained rule that in cases of this nature in equity it is not obligatory upon the plaintiff to prove that the applicant in the preparation of his application for the policy was motivated by a deliberate intent to deceive. Commercial Casualty Insurance Co. v. Southern Surety Co., 100 N.J.Eq. 92 135 A. 511, affirmed 101 N.J.Eq. 738, 138 A. 919. The degree of materiality of the misstatement of fact in the application has been defined in Kerpchak v. John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Co., 97 N.J.L. 196, 198, 117 A. 836.
In the present case the assured is charged with having made an untruthful answer to the following interrogatory embodied in the conventional application form: ‘Have you ever had any ailment or disease of (c) the Stomach or Intestines, Liver, Kidneys or Genito-Urinary Organs?’ The answer was ‘No.’ The accusation is that prior to his application he had suffered from gastric and peptic ulcers of the stomach.
My conclusion derived from a consideration of all of the evidence is that the plaintiff has been unable to prove with any persuasive degree of certitude that the answer given by the assured was untrue.
There were occasions distinctly isolated in point of time on which the assured experienced discomfiture from some irritation in his stomach. Not unlike many who suffer an ache and pain, he visited a physician. I infer from the evidence that the physician so interviewed in each instance suspected that the abdominal distress might well be due to a peptic ulcer, but assuredly the diagnosis was provisional and not positive. A diet was prescribed and the disturbance rapidly disappeared.
The recurrence of a like indisposition in October 1944 and again in March 1946 induced the assured to follow the recommendations of the physician and submit to X-rays of his stomach. Such was done on October 24, 1944, and on March 23, 1946, and the roentgenologist on each occasion reported that there was no evidence whatever of an ulcer, no secondary signs of such, and no organic pathology. The negative proof of any...
To continue reading
Request your trial
- Massachusetts Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. Manzo
-
Knepp v. Nationwide Ins. Co.
...Corp., 50 F.2d 872, 878 (4th Cir.1931); Hunt v. Moore, 2 Pa. 105 (1845); Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. v. Sinett, 2 N.J.Super. 506, 64 A.2d 639 (1949); Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. v. Lodzinski, 124 N.J.Eq. 328, 1 A.2d 856, reversed on other grounds, 124 N.J.Eq. 357, 1 A.2d 859 (1938);......
-
Knepp v. Nationwide Ins. Co.
... ... illnesses arising after the commencement of insurance ... coverage. Myers v. Metropolitan Life Insurance ... Company, 152 Pa.Super. 507, 33 A.2d 253 (1943). See ... also: IB Appleman, Insurance Law and Practice (rev. ed., ... 1981), § 396 ... ...
-
Colonial Life Ins. Co. of America v. Mazur, C--1485
...Co., supra. But see Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Urback, 138 N.J.Eq. 108, 46 A.2d 905 (E. & A. 1946); Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Sinett, 2 N.J.Super. 506, 64 A.2d 639 (Ch.Div.1949). To subjective questions such as 'what is the state or your health?', it is held that the question merely ......