Metropolitan Casualty Insurance Company v. Fairchild

• Decision Date: 30 May 1949
• Docket Number: 4-8898
• Citation: 220 S.W.2d 803,215 Ark. 416
• Parties: Metropolitan Casualty Insurance Company v. Fairchild
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

220 S.W.2d 803

215 Ark. 416

Metropolitan Casualty Insurance Company v. Fairchild

No. 4-8898

Supreme Court of Arkansas

May 30, 1949

Appeal from Clark Circuit Court; Dexter Bush, Judge.

Affirmed.

Huie & Huie, for appellant.

John H. Lookadoo, James T. Gooch and Agnes F. Ashby, for appellee.

OPINION

Minor W. Millwee, Justice.

This is an action to recover accident benefits on a policy of insurance issued to appellee, Warren C. Fairchild, by appellant, Metropolitan Casualty Insurance Company of New York, on June 21, 1937. The policy provides for the payment of accident indemnity of $ 50 per month in case of total disability resulting from accidental injury. It specifically insures against "the effects resulting directly and exclusively of all other causes, from bodily injury sustained during the life of this policy solely through external, violent and accidental means".

Trial before the circuit court, sitting as a jury, resulted in a judgment in appellee's favor for accrued disability payments plus the statutory penalty and attorney's fee. The court found that appellee was totally disabled from coronary occlusion which was caused by an accidental injury within the meaning of the policy.

Appellant earnestly insists that the evidence is insufficient to support the finding and judgment of the trial court. The facts are undisputed. Appellee was employed as chief engineer and ice puller for the Southern Ice Company at Arkadelphia for several years prior to February 2, 1948. On that day he was engaged in thawing a frozen valve on a storage tank on top of the building housing the ice plant. The storage tanks were about sixteen feet above the roof of the building. Appellee stood with his left foot on a rod which connected and supported the tanks and was leaning over in a strained position with most of his weight resting on his left arm and reaching over with his right arm using a blowtorch to thaw the frozen valve. While in this strained position he felt a severe pain in his chest and left arm. When the pain grew steadily worse a physician was summoned who diagnosed the case as either a strained muscle or a coronary occlusion based upon the history given by appellee. An electro-cardiogram was made about three days later which disclosed a coronary occlusion.

Appellee's physician testified that coronary occlusion is a disease caused by a rupture of a blood vessel in the heart. He gave it as his unqualified opinion, based on the case history and testimony of appellee, that the disease was not present prior to, but was precipitated by, the unusual strain from the position in which appellee was placed in thawing the frozen valve. It was also shown that appellee was healthy and accustomed to hard manual labor prior to the injury, which rendered him totally disabled. The effect of appellee's testimony is also that he had engaged in thawing valves before, but not on the same tank or in the strained position employed at the time he was stricken.

The conflict in the authorities on the question here presented is stated in 29 Am. Jur., Insurance, § 1006, as follows "The difference of opinion as to whether accidental means may consist of an unusual and unexpected result of a voluntary and intended act is reflected in the cases dealing with death or injury resulting from exertion or strain. A number of cases -- in accordance with the rule that accidental means cannot consist of a voluntary act, and that it is not enough that the death or injury is unusual and unexpected, but that the cause must also be unusual and unexpected -- have denied recovery on account of death or injury resulting from the insured's voluntary act involving exertion, over-exertion, or strain. . . . In other cases, however, the view has been taken that where death or injury following overexertion or strain is unforeseen and unexpected, and is not such as to naturally and probably result from the voluntary act done, but is rather an unusual result, such death or injury is an accident or is effected by accidental means." Opposing counsel have cited cases from other jurisdictions in support of their respective contentions. Many cases demonstrating the conflict in the authorities are collected in 111 A. L. R. 630, which supplements six prior...