Stonebraker v. Reliance Life Ins. Co. of Pittsburgh

• Decision Date: 12 March 1936
• Citation: 123 Fla. 244,166 So. 583
• Parties: STONEBRAKER v. RELIANCE LIFE INS. CO. OF PITTSBURGH.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

166 So. 583

123 Fla. 244

STONEBRAKER v. RELIANCE LIFE INS. CO. OF PITTSBURGH.

Florida Supreme Court, Division B.

March 12, 1936

Rehearing Denied March 31, 1936.

Error to Circuit Court, De Soto County; W. J. Barker, Judge.

Suit by George T. Stonebraker, as administrator of the estate of Jacob Franklin Stonebraker, deceased, against the Reliance Life Insurance Company of Pittsburgh. To review a judgment for defendant, plaintiff brings error.

Affirmed.

COUNSEL

Treadwell & Treadwell, of Arcadia, for plaintiff in error.

Giles & Gurney and J. Thomas Gurney, all of Orlando, for defendant in error.

OPINION

BUFORD Justice.

The writ of error in this case brings for review a judgment in favor of the defendant in a suit by administrator to recover premiums paid on a policy of insurance containing a permanent disability clause, as follows:

'Total and Permanent Disability.--If the insured has not attained the age of sixty years after one full annual premium has been paid and before a default in the payment of any subsequent premium, this policy will become fully paid up requiring no further payment of premiums by the insured provided evidence, satisfactory to the Company, shall be furnished by the insured that he has become totally and permanently disabled for life by bodily injury or disease, and is thereby prevented from performing any and every kind of duty pertaining to his occupation or any other occupation or gainful pursuit. On receipt of such evidence the Company will endorse the proper provision hereon. In such event the cash, loan and surrender values shall increase from year to year, and this policy shall participate in any distribution of surplus in its class in like manner as if the premiums had been regularly and duly paid by the Insured.'

In short, it is contended that the insured did not read the insurance policy and did not know that the above-quoted clause was within the contract until a very short time before his death, and that during the total period of five years next preceding his death he was entitled to the benefits of that clause of the policy, but that because of the fact that he had not familiarized himself with the terms of the contract he paid the annual premiums and his administrator is now entitled to recover the aggregate amount of such premiums from the insurance company.

The insured was a party to the contract. The evidence shows that the contract was in his possession during the whole time from the date of delivery until insured died.

It appears to us that under this state of facts the insured was bound by the terms expressed in the contract and is charged with knowledge of the provisions of the contract. See Jefferson County v. Hawkins, Trustee, 23 Fla. 223, 2 So. 362; Scottish Union & National Ins. Co. v. David Petty, 21 Fla. 399; Perry v. Woodberry, 26 Fla. 84, 7 So. 483.

In the latter case the court held in effect that the instrument is the best possible evidence of the intent and meaning of the parties to a contract and that no other language is admissible to show what the parties meant or intended, provided, of course, the terms of the contract are unambiguous. Now if the language used in a contract is the best possible evidence of the intent and meaning of the contracting parties, it necessarily follows that the contracting parties must, in the absence of fraud, be assumed to have known what the provisions contained in the contract were because the contract could not express the intent of the parties without the language used in the contract being known to the parties. In Georgia Home Ins. Co. v. Hoskins, 71 Fla. 282, 71 So. 285, 287, it was held that the insured was bound to knowledge of all the provisions of his policy. There we said:

'Insured by accepting a policy on incumbered property containing a condition that it should be void in case the property insured should be or become incumbered prior to or subsequent to the date of the policy, was charged with notice of and bound by such...