Northwestern Mut Life Ins Co v. Muskegon Nat Bank

• Decision Date: 23 May 1887
• Citation: 30 L.Ed. 1100,7 S.Ct. 1221,122 U.S. 501
• Parties: NORTHWESTERN MUT. LIFE INS. CO. v. MUSKEGON NAT. BANK. 1
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

122 U.S. 501

7 S.Ct. 1221

30 L.Ed. 1100

NORTHWESTERN MUT. LIFE INS. CO. v. MUSKEGON NAT. BANK.¹

May 23, 1887.

Edward Salomon

John E. Parsons, for defendant in error.

MILLER, J.

The Muskegon National Bank recovered a judgment in the circuit court of the United States for theSouthern district of New York, against the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company, upon a policy of insurance on the life of Erwin G. Comstock for $23,717.04, and to this judgment the present writ of Error is directed. The bank had an insurance upon the life of Comstock, its debtor, for the sum of $20,000. On the trial before the jury, although some other issues were made in the pleadings, the contest turned, so far as the assignments of error are presented here, on the condition of Comstock in regard to the habit of drinking alcoholic liquors. The policy, and the application for it, the answers to which were signed both by Com- stock and the bank through its president, present the foundation of the controversy. The sixteenth interrogatory is as follows: 'Are you, or have you ever been, in the habit of using alcoholic beverages or other stimulants?' The answer to this was, 'Yes; occasionally.' The twenty-second interrogatory, 'Have you read and assented to the following agreement?' was answered, 'Yes.' This agreement, so far as it touches the present issue, reads as follows: 'It is hereby declared that the above are the applicant's own fair and true answers to the foregoing questions, and the applicant is not, and will not become, habitually intemperate or addicted to the use of opium.' The body of the policy declared that if Comstock shall become intemperate, so as to impair his health or induce delirium tremens, or if any statement in the application, on the faith of which the policy is made, shall be found to be in any material respect untrue, the policy is void.

Upon this language in the application and the policy the defendant founded two separate pleas or defenses: First. That 'at the time of making and presenting said application as aforesaid, and of the issuing of said policy, the said Erwin G. Comstock was, and prior thereto had been, habitually intemperate, and that the said statement in said application contained, that said Erwin G. Comstock was not then habitually intemperate, was untrue and fraudulently made, and a suppression of facts material to the risk assumed by said policy of insurance.' Second. That 'said policy was issued by this defendant, and accepted by said plaintiff, upon the express condition, among others contained therein, that if said Erwin G. Comstock should become either habitually intemperate, or so far intemperate as to impair health or induce delirium tremens, the said policy should be null and void; that in fact, as this defendanti § informed and believes, the said Erwin G. Comstock did, after the issuing of said policy, become habitually intemperate, and so far intemperate as to impair his health and induce delirium tremens; and that thereby the said policy became and is null and void.'

The issues were tried upon the two allegations of habitual intemperance before and after the issue of the policy. The company, discarding other issues, assumed the affirmative on these two pleas, and on a plea of suicide, which seems to have been abandoned, and thereby obtained the opening and the conclusion to the jury. The assignments of error raise objections to the action of the court in excluding answers to questions propounded to witnesses for the defendant company on the trial, as well as its refusal to give certain instructions prayed for by the defendant to the jury.

A witness for the defendant, named Torrent, testified that he knew Comstock at Muskegon from 1868 to 1875. The policy of insurance was taken out in New York in 1879. The witness further states that he was well acquainted with Comstock in Muskegon, and knew that he was addicted to the use of intoxicating liquors during the period of their acquaintance; had seen him drunk; knew of his being on prolonged sprees; and gave other testimony to the effect that he did use intoxicating liquors to excess. He was then asked this question: 'Up to the time your acquaintance with him ceased, what would you say as to whether his drinking had affected his health or impaired his vital powers in any respect?' To this he answered: 'I think it had affected him materially. I think it had affected his nerves, and impaired his health generally, general debility. The symptoms of that were his general looks, and that the time he went away, or just before, he was taken very sick, and they didn't know whether he was going to be alive or die; that was the general impression.' The court excluded this answer, and the defendant excepted. Witness also testified that he saw him during that sickness, and that he was then sick for about three weeks, adding: 'I think he had the delirium tremens.' This expression of opinion was also excluded.

It is to be observed that the witness had testified to all the facts which he knew, without objection, that tended to establish a habit of intemperance in Comstock prior to 1875. What he was next asked, and what he then testified to, was his opinion in regard to the effect of this intemperance upon the health of the assured. It will be noted that all this occurred between four and five years before the execution of the policy. We are of opinion that while the facts recited by this witness, and received in evidence, might have some remote tendency to show Comstock's habits in regard to temperance at the time to which they related, his opinion of their effect upon his health at the date of the policy, four years later, was indamissible as to that or his habits, as he knew nothing of these during that period.

The exception to the testimony of Barney, who undertook to detail conversations with a doctor attending Comstock prior to 1875, as to whether Comstock was threatened with delirium tremens or not, and the statement of the witness that he was afraid Comstock was going to have delirium tremens, which was excluded by the court, depend upon the same principle, and are otherwise incompetent. We see no error in those rulings.

The remaining assignments of error have regard to prayers for instructions by the court to the jury, which were refused. No assignment of error is founded on any exception taken to the charge of the judge who tried the case, which seems to have been eminently fair and very full, and in our opinion embraced all that was necessary to be said to the jury on the subject. The questions which the jury had to respond to were whether Comstock was of intemperate habits at the time the policy was taken out, and whether he became habitually intemperate after that period. The whole a se turned, so far as the jury was concerned, upon the true definitions of the words 'habitually intemperate,' taken in connection with the testimony on the subject, at these two different periods. The plaintiff was not bound to prove that the assured was temperate, or that he was a temperate man; but the defendant was bound to prove, not only that Comstock was intemperate at those periods, but that he was habitually so. This it was bound to do by such a preponderance of tertimony as should satisfy the jury that at one of these periods or the other he was habitually intemperate. We do not know of any established legal definition of those words. As they relate to the customs and habits of men generally in regard to the use of intoxicating drinks, and as the observation and experience of one man on that subject is as good as another of equal capacity and opportunities, their true meaning and signification would seem to be a question addressed rather to the jury than to the court. While there may be on the one hand such a clear case of intemperate habits as to justify the court in saying that such and such facts constitute a condition of habitual intemperance, or on the other such an entire absence of any proof, beyond an occasional indulgence in the use of ardent spirits, as to warrant the opposite conclusion, yet the main field of inquiry, and the determination of the question within it, must be submitted to the jury, and the question on this submission must be decided by them.

The testimony in this case is all embodied in the record, and is contradictory. It must be divided into its relations to the two periods,—before and after the execution of the policy. It is seen from the testimony that Comstock left Muskegon, where many of these these witnesses resided who testify as to his excessive use of intoxicating drinks, prior to 1875, and that they know nothing of his habits after that. The policy was taken out in 1879. It is also quite clear that, under a pledge made to one of his partners in business, he had refrained from the use of intoxicating drinks from the first of June, 1878, up to the time of taking out this policy, and continued so to refrain up to March, 1880. There are several witnesses who testify that after his removal to New York in 1875 he was drunk, had sprees once in a while, and perhaps several of them up to the time when he made this pledge to his partner. There are others who testify that after March, 1880, he was again seen intoxicated, and had spells of confinement on account of those sprees. On the other hand there were four or five witnesses examined, some of whom were...