Sizemore v. Nat'l Cas. Co., (No. 6613)
| Decision Date | 11 February 1930 |
| Docket Number | (No. 6613) |
| Citation | 108 W.Va. 550 |
| Court | West Virginia Supreme Court |
| Parties | Bertie Sizemore, Adm'x. v. National Casualty Company |
Insurance Officer Leaving Rapidly Moving Automobile to Prevent Escape of Prisoner Who Jumped Therefrom Held Not "Accidentally Thrown" Therefrom Within Accident Policy.
A case in which an assured, who left a rapidly moving car, which he was driving, to prevent the escape of a prisoner, who had just jumped therefrom, is held not to have been "accidentally thrown from such * * * car" within the meaning of the policy declared on.
Error to Circuit Court, Wyoming County.
Action by Bertie Sizemore, as administratrix of J. R. Sizemore, deceased, against the National Casualty Company. Judgment for defendant, and plaintiff brings error.
Affirmed.
Bailey & Shannon, for plaintiff in error. E. W. Worrell, for defendant in error.
The widow of J. R. Sizemore, as administratrix of the latter's estate, instituted this action on an accident policy of insurance issued her husband during his lifetime by the National Casualty Company. The defendant in consideration of the payment of a premium of $1.00 insured Sizemore "against death or disability resulting directly and independently of all other causes, from bodily injuries sustained through external, violent and accidental means (subject to all limitations and conditions herein contained), for a term of twelve months." According to one of the subdivisions of the insuring clause, expressly limiting defendant's liability to certain travel accidents, it is agreed that, if the insured "by the wrecking of any private horse-drawn vehicle, or private motordriven car or motorcycle, in or on which the insured is riding or driving, or by being accidentally thrown from such vehicle or car" should lose his life, it would pay $2,000.00.
The deceased, a deputy sheriff of Wyoming county, was, at the time of the injury, conveying a prisoner from Mullens to the county jail at Pineville. He was driving a Star touring car. The prisoner occupied the front seat with him, and John K. Lambert, the only witness to the accident, the rear seat. While the car was running twenty-five to thirty miles per hour the prisoner jumped to the ground, making his escape. The deceased, presumably in an attempt to prevent the escape, without checking the speed of the car materially, proceeded through the door, by which the prisoner had fled, to the running board, and from there "stepped off on the ground with his feet". In so doing he lost his footing and fell to the ground, sustaining a severe fracture at the base of the skull from which injury he died two days later. The road was slightly up grade at the point of the accident. The car, after decedent left it, continued forward until it collided with the rail of a cement bridge, forty to sixty feet distant. Defendant demurred to the evidence; and the court, on the conditional verdict, entered judgment for the defendant.
The only question before us is whether or not decedent's injury is within the terms of the policy.
Accident insurance policies are governed by the...
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Turner v. Mut. Ben. Health & Accident Ass'n
...death resulting from such an act was not accidental, within the meaning of the insurance contract there involved. Sizemore v. National Casualty Co., 108 W.Va. 550, 151 S.E. 841, is also cited. There the insured, who was a deputy sheriff, jumped from an automobile going between 25 and 30 mil......
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Mitchell v. Metro. Life Ins. Co, 9289.
...on the question, only two efforts have been made to define what is meant by "accidental means". In Sizemore v. National Casualty Co., 108 W.Va. 550, 151 S.E. 841, 842, this explanation is found: " * * * when injury or death follows or results from a voluntary act of the insured, and the act......
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Mitchell v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co.
...of this Court on the subject, Otey v. John Hancock Mut. Life Ins. Co., 120 W.Va. 434, 199 S.E. 596, 597, however, without reference to the Sizemore case or the Miller case, adopts the rule of interpretation in such cases. That opinion recognizes that "the question of what are 'accidental me......
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Mitchell v. Metro. Life Ins. Co., (No. 9289)
...Court bearing on the question, only two efforts have been made to define what is meant by "accidental means". In Sizemore v. Casualty Co., 108 W. Va. 550, 151 S. E. 841, this explanation is found: "* * * when injury or death follows or results from a voluntary act of the insured, and the ac......