Robinson v. Commonwealth Casualty Co.

• Decision Date: 07 April 1930
• Docket Number: No. 16854.,16854.
• Citation: 27 S.W.2d 49
• Parties: ROBINSON v. COMMONWEALTH CASUALTY CO.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

27 S.W.2d 49

ROBINSON v. COMMONWEALTH CASUALTY CO.

No. 16854.

Kansas City Court of Appeals. Missouri.

April 7, 1930.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Adair County; Paul D. Higbee, Judge.

Action by Grace Robinson against the Commonwealth Casualty Company. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals.

Affirmed.

M. D. & J. M. Campbell, of Kirksville, for appellant.

Murrell & Murrell, of Kirksville, for respondent.

BLAND, J.

This is a suit on a policy of accident and health insurance. The case was tried before the court without the aid of a jury, resulting in a verdict in favor of the plaintiff in the sum of $150.00. Defendant has appealed.

The policy first provides for accident insurance and thereafter covers "the effects of sickness." The provision in reference to sickness recites that if plaintiff should be continuously confined within the house, not leaving it any time for any purpose, and regularly visited therein at least once every seven days by a licensed physician, and be wholly prevented from transacting any and every kind of business, solely by lobar pneumonia or certain other sicknesses and diseases "not including their complications and consequences," a weekly indemnity of $25.00 would be paid after the first seven days.

Plaintiff was sick with influenza from about January 15th to February 1st, 1927. She then developed lobar pneumonia. Her physician testified that the active period of the infection of the pneumonia was 12 days. The evidence shows that plaintiff's sickness after said 12 days covered the period of her recuperation, which period lasted until March 25th, 1927. Upon plaintiff becoming ill on January 15th she was confined to the house about one week. She was then taken to the hospital where she remained about three weeks. Thereupon she was taken home where she remained confined to her house, and in bed a greater part of the time, and was unable to transact any business. While in the hospital her physician attended her every day and while at home he treated her several times every week.

Seizing upon the testimony of the physician that the active period of the pneumonia infection was 12 days, defendant claims that the period of recuperation thereafter was merely a consequence of the pneumonia; that as the policy did not include complications and consequences of such a disease, plaintiff is entitled to recover for a period of only five days, there being no indemnity for the first seven days of her illness from pneumonia, at the rate of $25.00 per week. This amount was tendered to plaintiff by defendant prior to the institution of this suit. We are not impressed with this contention. Webster states that the synonym for the word "consequence" is "result." In Munroe v. Hartford St. Ry. Co., 76 Conn. 201, 56 A. 498, 501, it is stated: "`Cause' and `consequence' are correlative terms. One implies the other. When an event is followed in natural sequence by a result it is adapted to produce or aid in producing, that result is a consequence of the event, and the event is the cause of the result." Corpus Juris, citing the Standard Dictionary, defines complications as "anything that complicates or causes difficulty, embarrassment, or intricacy, as a disease coexisting with another disease and rendering it difficult of treatment." 12 C. J. p. 246. Whatever the medical understanding may be relative to the period of the running of a specific illness or disease, the layman understands that the illness lasts from the time of its inception until the individual recovers, which includes the period of recuperation. The period of recuperation is not a result of the sickness but a part of it. A result of a sickness would be some consequence of the illness separate and distinct from the illness itself. For instance meningitis has been known to produce curvature of the spine and the withering of the lower limbs. The curvature or withering would be a result of the disease. Deafness has been known to result from catarrh, but would not be classed as a part of the disease of catarrh.

An instance of a result or consequence of a sickness is found in the case of Kearns v. North American Life & Cas. Co., 150 Minn. 486, 185 N. W. 659. In that case it was held that rheumatism or neuritis developing from an infected finger causing an abscess under plaintiff's armpit were the consequences and not a complication of the infection which was her original ailment. An ordinary layman would not make any distinction between the...