Owens v. Sovereign Camp, W. O. W.

• Decision Date: 14 January 1935
• Docket Number: 13976.
• Citation: 178 S.E. 125,174 S.C. 514
• Parties: OWENS v. SOVEREIGN CAMP, W. O. W.
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court

178 S.E. 125

174 S.C. 514

OWENS v. SOVEREIGN CAMP, W. O. W.

No. 13976.

Supreme Court of South Carolina

January 14, 1935

Appeal from Common Pleas Circuit Court of Pickens County; G. Dewey Oxner, Judge.

Action by J. L. Owens against the Sovereign Camp of the Woodmen of the World.From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals.

Reversed and remanded, with directions.

Hodges & Hodges, of Greenville, for appellant.

Julian D. Wyatt, of Pickens, for respondent.

STABLER Justice.

This action was brought by the plaintiff to recover certain disability benefits under a certificate of insurance which had been issued him by the defendant association.The sole issue made on trial of the case was whether there was any testimony tending to show that the insured was totally disabled, as that phrase has been defined by this court in connection with its use in insurance contracts.The defendant's motion for a directed verdict was overruled and the jury found for the plaintiff $500.The ground of the motion, that there was no evidence of such disability, is renewed here by the exceptions, and this is the only question involved in the appeal.

We have held that "what amounts to a total disability is a relative matter, and depends largely upon the circumstances of each case, and upon the occupation and employment in which the person insured is engaged"(McCutchen v Insurance Co.,153 S.C. 401, 151 S.E. 67, 80); that the phrase is not to be literally construed, but that a person is "deemed totally disabled when he is no longer able to do his accustomed task, and such work as he has only been trained to do, and upon which he must depend for a living"(Taylor v. Insurance Co.,106 S.C. 356, 91 S.E. 326, 327, L. R. A. 1917C, 910); and that the total disability contemplated by contracts of insurance "is inability to do substantially all of the material acts necessary to the...