Order of United Commercial Travelers v. Shane, 9510.

• Decision Date: 27 February 1933
• Docket Number: No. 9510.,9510.
• Citation: 64 F.2d 55
• Parties: ORDER OF UNITED COMMERCIAL TRAVELERS OF AMERICA v. SHANE.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

64 F.2d 55 (1933)

ORDER OF UNITED COMMERCIAL TRAVELERS OF AMERICA v. SHANE.

No. 9510.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

February 27, 1933.

Byron S. Payne, of Pierre, S. D. (John Sutherland and Otto B. Linstad, both of Pierre, S. D., on the brief), for appellant.

H. F. Fellows, of Rapid City, S. D., for appellee.

Before STONE, VAN VALKENBURGH, and BOOTH, Circuit Judges.

BOOTH, Circuit Judge.

This is an appeal from a judgment entered on the 15th of December, 1931, modified on February 25, 1932, granting recovery to the appellee upon certain certificates of accident insurance held by her son in the appellant corporation, in which certificates she was the beneficiary.

A stipulation waiving a jury was filed, and the case tried to the court; findings were made, and conclusions of law as a basis for the judgment.

The findings of the court as originally made, so far as material to the present controversy, are set out in the margin.¹

Judgment was entered December 15, 1931. Thereafter a statement of the case was made and signed January 14, 1932. February 10, 1932, various motions were filed by the defendant and heard by the court on February 25, 1932. By these motions it was sought, among other things, to strike out findings IV, XI and XVII, to set aside the judgment, and to enter judgment for defendant, to have made two additional findings, and to modify the judgment as to method of payment.

The court granted the motion for additional findings. They are set out in the margin as A and B.² The court also granted the motion in one respect to modify the judgment, and denied the other motions. The present appeal followed.

The contentions of the appellant are: (1) That on the undisputed facts, as disclosed by the findings, the death was not the result of a bodily injury effected through external, violent, and accidental means, (2) but was the result of a medical, mechanical, and surgical treatment, and the intentional taking of medicine and drugs, and that therefore there was no liability on the policy.

It is further contended by appellant that the judgment was erroneous, in that it covered not only the amount payable at once, but also certain installments that were not due when the action was commenced. In the view we take of the case, it will not be necessary to consider the last contention.

Appellee contends that there was an accident in the means employed, and argues that there was no intention on the part of the physician to inject the drug into insured's body containing the idiosyncrasy, and that it was the unknown and unexpected presence of the idiosyncrasy which constituted the accident contained in and being a part of the means employed.

It is also contended by the appellee that, although insured's death resulted while under medical treatment, it did not result from medical treatment, and that the giving of the anæsthetic was no part of the examination or of the treatment; that the language of the constitution and by-laws of the appellant as to the taking of medicine and drugs means that the insured must have willfully and knowingly taken medicine and drugs with the intention to effect a certain result; and that this was not the situation in the case at bar, because the insured did not know the drug that was to be applied and had not requested it.

The contentions of appellee find support in findings IV and XVII of the trial court.

The first question which challenges our attention is whether these findings (IV and XVII) can be reviewed on this appeal.

It is provided by statute, where a jury is waived and the case tried to the court, that "the finding of the court upon the facts, which may be either general or special, shall have the same effect as the verdict of a jury." 28 USCA § 773.

This statutory provision does not prevent a review of questions of law; and, where the primary facts are either stipulated or established by uncontradicted evidence, and the court, solely from these primary facts, finds an ultimate fact upon which the judgment rests, such finding is in the nature of a conclusion of law, and as such is reviewable on appeal to determine whether the primary facts support it.

In St. Paul Abstract Co. v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 32 F.(2d) 225, this court, speaking through Judge Stone, said, at page 226: "Where the facts are undisputed there remains no question of fact in the usual sense of the term, but where the primary facts are agreed it is a question of law whether such facts justify the finding of an ultimate fact required by the statute. Botany Worsted Mills v. U. S., 278 U. S. 282, 49 S. Ct. 129, 73 L. Ed. 379. * * * The ultimate fact required by this statute to be found is whether the taxpayer is a personal service corporation within the meaning of that statute. This requires a construction of the meaning of the statute and its application to a stipulated set of primary facts. We think that we must examine the stipulated facts and determine whether they justify the conclusion that this petitioner is not a personal service corporation within the meaning of the statute."

This rule is well established in cases appealed from the Court of Claims to the Supreme Court. Act of March 3, 1887, 28 US CA § 764. In Hathaway & Co. v. United States, 249 U. S. 460, the court in its opinion said, at page 463, 39 S. Ct. 346, 347, 63 L. Ed. 707: "The Court of Claims found: `There was no unreasonable delay on the part of the government in approving the contract.' This finding, like one of reasonable value (Talbert v. United States, 155 U. S. 45, 46, 15 S. Ct. 4, 39 L. Ed. 64), is a finding of an ultimate fact by which this court is bound, unless it appears that the finding was made without supporting evidence (Cramp & Sons Co. v. United States, 239 U. S. 221, 232, 36 S. Ct. 70, 60 L. Ed. 238; Stone v. United States, 164 U. S. 380, 17 S. Ct. 71, 41 L. Ed. 477; United States v. Clark, 96 U. S. 37, 24 L. Ed. 696), or is inconsistent with other facts found (United States v. Berdan Firearms Co., 156 U. S. 552, 573, 15 S. Ct. 420, 39 L. Ed. 530)." See, also, United States v. Pugh, 99 U. S. 265, 25 L. Ed. 322; United States v. Buffalo Pitts Co., 234 U. S. 228, 34 S. Ct. 840, 58 L. Ed. 1290.

The same rule may also be applicable on the question of infringement in patent cases. Singer Co. v. Cramer, 192 U. S. 265, 24 S. Ct. 291, 48 L. Ed. 437; Stilz v. United States, 269 U. S. 144, 46 S. Ct. 37, 70 L. Ed. 202; Chicago & A. Ry. Co. v. Pressed Steel Car Co. (C. C. A.) 243 F. 883.

We think the rule above stated is applicable to the findings IV and XVII in the case at bar, and that such findings are reviewable.

This requires a consideration of the certificate or policy of insurance and the primary facts as set forth in the findings of the trial court.

The provisions of the certificate, which included the constitution and by-laws of the order by reference, are found in the findings A and B. They entered into and were a part of the contract between the order and the insured.

It is the duty of the courts to construe a contract, but they may not alter its terms or make a new contract for the parties.

The facts regarding the death of the insured are set forth in the findings of primary facts by the court, and are not in dispute. Do these findings of primary facts support the conclusions of ultimate facts embodied in the findings IV and XVII?

As to finding IV, we think that in the case at bar the distinction between an accidental result and the result of an accidental cause or means was overlooked. That distinction was clearly recognized in the case of U. S. Mutual Acc. Ass'n v. Barry, 131 U. S. 100, where the court said, at page 121, 9 S. Ct. 755, 759, 33 L. Ed. 60: "If in the act which precedes the injury something unforeseen, unexpected, unusual, occurs, which produces the injury, then the injury has resulted * * * through accidental means."

The distinction was also pointed out by this court in the case of Lincoln Nat. Life Ins. Co. v. Erickson, 42 F.(2d) 997, and a number of cases were cited which recognize the distinction.

The Erickson Case involved a streptococcic infection, which plaintiff contended was connected with a slight abrasion of the skin on the face of insured. This court in its opinion said, at page 1000:

"And at this point it may be proper to note the distinction between an accidental result and the result of an accidental cause or means. Under policies worded as the one in the present case the element of accident must be found to exist in that which produces the bodily injury, i. e., in the means or cause rather than in the result. The distinction is important and is recognized in many well-considered cases. * * *

"In the case at bar the deceased was insured, not against accidental results of intended means, but against death resulting from a bodily injury effected directly through external, violent, and accidental means. It may be proper enough, loosely to speak of the death as an accidental one; but the evidence, in our judgment, fails to show a death resulting from a bodily injury effected directly by accidental means."

Counsel for plaintiff cites the Barry Case, supra, as supporting their contention. We think the true construction of the Barry Case is that given by Judge Denison in the case of Pope v. Prudential Ins. Co. of America (C. C. A.) 29 F.(2d) 185, 186, wherein he says, referring to the Barry Case: "The evidence recited, what the court had said in its charge to the jury, and the comments of the Supreme Court, all indicate that the approved theory of recovery was that there had been some slip or mishap attending Barry's act in jumping to the ground, whereby his intended act was, as to the manner of its execution, transformed into an unintended one."

In the case at bar, the means employed was the administration of the drug butyn. There was nothing in the act of administering the drug which was unintended or unexpected. There is no showing that the...