Railway Mail Ass'n v. Dent

• Decision Date: 10 April 1914
• Docket Number: 3557.
• Citation: 213 F. 981
• Parties: RAILWAY MAIL ASS'N v. DENT.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

213 F. 981

RAILWAY MAIL ASS'N v. DENT.

No. 3557.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

April 10, 1914

Leo Kennedy, of St. Paul, Minn. (John P. Kennedy, of St. Paul Minn., on the brief), for plaintiff in error.

O. H O'Neill, of St. Paul, Minn., for defendant in error.

Before HOOK and SMITH, Circuit Judges, and POPE, District Judge.

HOOK Circuit Judge.

This case involves the liability of the Railway Mail Association an incorporated fraternal benefit society, under a certificate of accident insurance issued to James Dent for the benefit of his wife, Ella S. Dent. The association promised by the certificate to pay Mrs. Dent $3,000 in case her husband 'received injuries through external, violent and accidental means, resulting in his death from such injuries within 120 days. ' The constitution and by-laws of the association provided as follows:

'No benefit or sum whatever shall be made payable in any case whatsoever unless the accident alone results in producing visible external marks of injury or violence suffered by the body of the member, nor unless the death or disability results wholly from the injury and within 120 days from the date thereof. Nor shall any benefit be paid where death or disability results from * * * poison or other injurious matter taken or administered accidentally or otherwise. * * * Accidental death shall be construed to be either sudden violent death from external causes, * * * or death within 120 days from injuries received by accident alone.'

While in the woods in the suburbs of St. Paul, Minn., Dent accidentally came in contact with poison ivy, with the result that an eruption appeared between his fingers two or three days afterwards, and grew until it covered his limbs and body and in about seven weeks caused his death.

The essentials of a recovery by Mrs. Dent-- so far as any contentions advanced make these a matter for present consideration-- are that her husband's death was caused by 'accident,' that the accident alone resulted in producing 'visible external marks of injury,' and that his death did not result from poison or other injurious matter 'taken or administered' accidentally or otherwise. His contact with the poison ivy happened by chance, and was in ignorance of its character, was unintentional and involuntary, and the result from his conscious act was unexpected. This would seem to make it an accident within the customary meaning, as clearly as if he had been stung by a poisonous insect or bitten by a poisonous reptile. Association v. Barry, 131 U.S. 100, 9 Sup.Ct. 755, 33 L.Ed. 60; Western Commercial Travelers' Ass'n v. Smith, 29 C.C.A. 223, 85 F. 401, 40 L.R.A. 653; Omberg v. Mut. Ass'n, 101 Ky. 303, 40 S.W. 909, 72 Am.St.Rep. 413. The phrase 'injury by accident' in the English Workmen's Compensation Act was held by the House of Lords to include an infection with anthrax while handling wool. In Brintons v. Turvey, App. Cas. (1905) 230, the Lord Chancellor said:

'I think in popular phraseology, from which we are to seek our guidance, it (the act) excludes, and was intended to exclude, idiopathic disease; but when some affection of our physical frame is in any way induced by an accident, we must be on our guard that we are not misled by medical phrases to alter the proper application of the phrase 'accident causing injury' because the injury inflicted by accident sets up a condition of things which medical men describe as disease. Suppose in this case a tack or some poisoned substance had cut the skin and set up tetanus. Tetanus is a disease; but would anybody contend that there was not accident causing damage?'

This has especial bearing on the argument that Dent died of a disease, that is, blood poisoning, and not from accident. The testimony was that contact with ivy operates much like a burn, in that when the eruption covers the body it seals the skin against the natural discharge of the secretions, and blood poisoning results. The ultimate effects of many injuries indisputably external and accidental might be similarly described. A like contention was before this court in Western Commercial Travelers' Ass'n v. Smith supra. Next, the accident alone must have produced 'visible external marks of injury.' There is no doubt that contact with the ivy directly and alone caused the condition described; no other cause is suggested. Nor is it disputed that the eruption, first on the hands and then on the limbs and body, was both visible and external. True, it did not appear until two or three days after the contact; but it was not provided it should show at once. It came soon and in the natural course, and was of a character that left no...