Seipel v. Equitable Life Ins. Co. of Iowa

• Decision Date: 22 June 1932
• Docket Number: No. 4601.,4601.
• Citation: 59 F.2d 544
• Parties: SEIPEL v. EQUITABLE LIFE INS. CO. OF IOWA.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

59 F.2d 544 (1932)

SEIPEL v. EQUITABLE LIFE INS. CO. OF IOWA.

No. 4601.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

June 22, 1932.

Sherman Minton, John H. Weathers, and Evan B. Stotsenburg, all of New Albany, Ind., for appellant.

William Marshall Bullitt, Leo T. Wolford, and R. Lee Blackwell, all of Louisville, Ky. (Bruce & Bullitt, of Louisville, Ky., and Jewett & Bulleit, of New Albany, Ind., of counsel), for appellee.

Before ALSCHULER and SPARKS, Circuit Judges, and WILKERSON, District Judge.

ALSCHULER, Circuit Judge.

Appellant, as beneficiary, sought recovery under the "Double Indemnity" provision of a life insurance policy issued to her husband, whereby the insurer agreed to pay double the face of the policy in case "the death of the insured resulted * * * independently of all other causes, from bodily injuries effected solely through external, violent and accidental means."

At the close of the evidence for appellant the court directed a verdict for appellee and gave judgment accordingly, from which this appeal is prosecuted.

Seipel, an apparently strong and healthy young man, had for five years worked in a garage. He was engaged, with one Johnson, in placing in position on a motorbus a disc wheel weighing from 150 to 175 pounds. He on one side and Johnson on the other had lifted the wheel the necessary three inches from the floor, and were in the act of setting it upon the drum of the axle so that the six holes in the disc of the wheel would engage the six studs projecting outward from the drum, when suddenly Seipel let go of the wheel and clapped his hands on his abdomen with a cry of pain, saying he felt something tear within, and on opening his shirt a lump was found sticking out at the navel. Shortly afterwards, upon advice of his physician, he was operated for an umbilical hernia and died from resultant post-operative pneumonia.

The sole question is: Was there substantial evidence tending to indicate that the hernia which resulted in his death was caused through external, violent, and accidental means?

If the means which alone caused the hernia were means which Seipel himself intentionally invoked and employed, then the means were not accidental, however unintended and unexpected the result. In other words, if Seipel intentionally participated in lifting this wheel into position, and while so lifting or holding it the hernia occurred without the intervention of outside and accidental means causing it, his injury was not caused in such manner as to raise liability for the double indemnity. Lyon v. Travelers' Protective Ass'n, 25 F.(2d) 596 (C. C. A. 4); Baldwin v. N. Am. Acc. Ins. Co., 22 F.(2d) 111 (C. C. A. 5); Carswell v. Ry. Mail Ass'n, 8 F.(2d) 612 (C. C. A. 5); Maryland Casualty Co. v. Spitz, 246 F. 817, L. R. A. 1918C, 1191 (C. C. A. 3); Shanberg v. Fid. & Cas. Co., 158 F. 1, 19 L. R. A. (N. S.) 1206 (C. C. A. 8).

Appellant does not controvert this proposition, but contends that the accidental slipping or dropping of the wheel out of Seipel's hands was the external, violent, and accidental means whereby the hernia was caused. If there was substantial evidence tending to show this, it may be conceded that the court should...