Metropolitan Life Insurance Company v. Wood, 17561.

• Decision Date: 04 May 1962
• Docket Number: No. 17561.,17561.
• Citation: 302 F.2d 802
• Parties: METROPOLITAN LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY, Appellant, v. Constance C. WOOD, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

302 F.2d 802 (1962)

METROPOLITAN LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY, Appellant, v. Constance C. WOOD, Appellee.

No. 17561.

United States Court of Appeals Ninth Circuit.

May 4, 1962.

Knight, Boland & Riordan, Burton L. Walsh, Richard J. Kilmartin, San Francisco, Cal., Adams, Duque & Hazeltine, Henry Duque, James C. Powers, Los Angeles, Cal., for appellant.

Moerdyke, Anderson, Evans & Rhodes, N. Perry Moerdyke, Jr., Palo Alto, Cal., John F. Porter, Palo Alto, Cal., for appellee.

Before ORR, HAMLEY, and BROWNING, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM.

On January 12, 1959, appellee's husband delivered an application for a policy of life insurance and a check for the first premium to an agent of the appellant insurance company. On January 17, 1959, he was examined by appellant's physician; later that day he died. Appellant thereafter rejected the application and offered to return the premium payment. Appellee sued to recover as beneficiary under the policy. "The issue in this appeal," as appellant states it, "is whether or not appellee's deceased husband, Jean L. Wood, was insured by appellant at the time of his death."

The determination of this issue turns on the proper interpretation of the language of the application. The same language was before this Court in Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Grant, 268 F.2d 307 (9th Cir., 1959). Relying on Ransom v. Penn Mutual Life Ins. Co., 43 Cal.2d 420, 274 P.2d 633 (1954), we there concluded that under the law of California, an applicant might reasonably construe the language to mean "pay the portion of the premium required in advance and in consideration thereof you will have protection until your application is accepted or rejected" (268 F.2d at 310). We further concluded on the basis of Ransom that the Supreme Court of California would require any ambiguity in the language to be resolved against the insurance company which drafted it, and would therefore hold that "interim insurance was in force and effect from the time of the receipt by appellant's agent of the application and check * * *." (Ibid.) Ransom, as applied in Grant, would appear to be dispositive of this case.

Appellant argues, however, that the decedents in both Ransom and Grant were insurable at the time the applications and premium payments were submitted, whereas, in the present case Mr. Wood concededly was not. Appellant suggests that the rule of Ransom should be limited to situations in which the applicant was insurable when the application was submitted. In Ransom the insurance company sought to avoid liability on the ground that the applicant in that case was in fact an unacceptable risk for the insurance plan for which he had applied when he filed his application (43 Cal.2d at 425, 274 P.2d at 636). The Supreme Court of California rejected the argument, pointing out that at the time of the...