Sharpe v. The Commercial Travelers' Mutual Accident Association of America

• Decision Date: 25 April 1894
• Docket Number: 16,661
• Citation: 37 N.E. 353,139 Ind. 92
• Parties: Sharpe, Administratrix, v. The Commercial Travelers' Mutual Accident Association of America
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

37 N.E. 353

139 Ind. 92

Sharpe, Administratrix, v. The Commercial Travelers' Mutual Accident Association of America

No. 16,661

Supreme Court of Indiana

April 25, 1894

Petition for a Rehearing Overruled Oct. 16, '94.

From the Marion Superior Court.

The judgment is affirmed.

F. M Finch and J. A. Finch, for appellant.

E Ritter and H. L. Ritter, for appellee.

OPINION

Hackney, J.

The appellant sued upon a policy issued by the appellee to one Calvin L. Sharpe, insuring him against accidental injuries and providing an indemnity of twenty-five dollars per week during disability, not exceeding twenty-six consecutive weeks, and a sum not exceeding five thousand dollars in case of death from such injuries within the period of ninety days after sustaining such injuries.

One of the expressed conditions of said insurance was as follows "That the benefits under this certificate shall not extend to hernia, or any bodily injury of which there shall be no external or visible sign. Nor to any bodily injury happening directly or indirectly in consequence of any disease, nor to any death or disability which may have been caused wholly or in part by bodily infirmities or disease, existing prior to or subsequent to the date of this certificate, nor to any case except where the injury is the proximate and sole cause of the death or disability, or where the injury may have happened while the member was or in consequence of his having been under the influence of intoxicating drinks, or to any death or personal injury unless the claimant under this certificate shall establish, by direct and positive proof, that the death or bodily injury was caused by external, violent, and accidental means, and was not the result of design on the part of the member."

The assured, on the 29th day of November, 1889, while pursuing his business as a traveling salesman, sustained a heavy fall, the left side of his forehead violently striking the floor and producing an injury. If the injury was due to accident and caused the death, there is no question made of the appellee's liability under the terms of the policy. If the injury was not due to accident, it is not doubted that the terms of the policy deny a recovery. The evidence disclosed no external cause for the fall, and it appeared simply that while standing, or possibly stepping aside from the position in which he had been standing, the assured threw up his hands and fell to the floor. If this were all, there would exist the gravest doubts of a liability, since the burden rested upon the appellant to establish that the injury was due to accidental means. But the positive and uncontradicted evidence, as given by experts who conducted and witnessed a post-mortem examination, was that the brain and heart had been diseased for more than a year next before the death; that at the time of the autopsy a tumor was found near the base of the brain, and fatty degeneration of the brain had so far advanced that a great portion of the brain substance had nearly, if not entirely, been converted into fat, the convolutions of the brain were almost obliterated, and the base of the brain, especially the membranes and the bone, were in a diseased condition, the bone itself undergoing fatty change, and the fatty matter had become injected throughout the entire brain until it was very white and almost bloodless.

The heart was found to have undergone a general degeneration, the blood vessels were obstructed with fatty substance, the cavity was abnormally large, its muscular structure and fibers had been, to a great extent, destroyed and converted into the fatty matter, its walls had become weakened and the whole had become very soft; the pericardium was lined with fat, and its fluid was diseased.

It was shown that, without doubt, these conditions, with their attendant results, caused the fall and the injury. There was a slight conflict in the evidence as to the extent of the injury, but with that we are not concerned, nor is it essential to our conclusion that the diseases so shown to have existed at the time of the injury were or were not the causes of the death.

The fact of persons meeting Mr. Sharpe from time to time and observing nothing in his appearance to indicate ill-health raises no conflict upon the evidence of the post-mortem examination as to the existence of fatty degeneration of the heart and brain. The evidence further shows, without conflict, that one suffering with fatty degeneration of the heart and brain may go about his business with no external signs of the disease further than may be manifested by dizziness, possibly causing the victim to fall.

It is enough, upon this...