Standard Accident Ins. Co. v. Broom

• Decision Date: 15 May 1916
• Docket Number: 17934
• Citation: 71 So. 653,111 Miss. 409
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: STANDARD ACCIDENT INSURANCE COMPANY v. BROOM

71 So. 653

111 Miss. 409

STANDARD ACCIDENT INSURANCE COMPANY v. BROOM

No. 17934

Supreme Court of Mississippi

May 15, 1916

APPEAL from the circuit court of Lowndes county, THOMAS B. CARROLL Judge.

Suit by Mrs. Ida Broom against the Standard Accident Insurance Company. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals.

The facts are fully stated in the opinion of the court.

Affirmed.

Sturdivant Owen & Garnett, for appellant.

James T. Harrison, for appellee.

OPINION

POTTER, J.

Mrs. Ida Broom brought suit in the circuit court of Lowndes county against the Standard Accident Insurance Company, a corporation chartered under the laws of Michigan and doing business in the state of Mississippi, for the recovery on a certain accident insurance policy held by her as beneficiary, insuring John W. Broom against accidental death in the sum of two thousand dollars.

The declaration sets out that the deceased in attempting to reverse a locomotive engine, of which he was in charge as engineer, had his left hand thrown violently against the corner of the cab and badly bruised and that the injury to the hand caused an embolus on the base of his brain near the medulla oblongata on the right side which caused his death. The plaintiff alleged in her declaration that the insured had complied with all the requirements of the defendant company, and was neither derelict in duty nor dues, and that the defendant company was therefore indebted to her under the terms of the policy in the sum of two thousand dollars. The policy was made an exhibit to the declaration. The case was submitted to the jury, and a verdict and judgment rendered for the plaintiff for two thousand dollars the amount sued for, and from this judgment the defendant insurance company appeals.

The insurance company argues at great length that the facts in this case will not sustain a verdict for the plaintiff mainly because the physicians testifying for the plaintiff testified that the embolus in passing from the bruised portion of the hand to its place of lodgment at the base of the brain would necessarily pass through the minute capillaries in the lungs, and that the physicians described the embolus as being much larger than the minute capillaries through which they said it passed; therefore, it is argued their conclusions were incorrect and physically impossible. We understand from the testimony of the physicians that this embolus was a pus formation and not a solid, and therefore we are unable to say that it was beyond physical possibility or probability for this small semiliquid substance, loose in the blood vessels, to be driven through the minute capillaries of the lungs to its place of lodgment. The physicians for the plaintiff testified that this happened, the jury so found, and we cannot say that they were wrong about it.

The main contention of the defendant, however, is that the assured, the said John W. Broom, or the beneficiary named in the policy, under the terms of the policy, was duty bound to give the defendant written notice of any accident or injury to him for which claim against the defendant could be made under said policy, with full particulars thereof, within fifteen days after the date of the accident causing the loss for which claim was made against the defendant, and that neither the said John W. Broom, nor the beneficiaries named in said policy, gave the defendant written notice within fifteen days of his alleged injury for...