Taylor v. Southern States Life Ins. Co.

• Decision Date: 10 February 1917
• Docket Number: 9594.
• Parties: TAYLOR v. SOUTHERN STATES LIFE INS. CO.
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court

91 S.E. 326

106 S.C. 356

TAYLOR v. SOUTHERN STATES LIFE INS. CO.

No. 9594.

Supreme Court of South Carolina

February 10, 1917

Appeal from Common Pleas Circuit Court of Marion County; Thomas S Sease, Judge.

Action by Levi F. Taylor against the Southern States Life Insurance Company. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Affirmed.

Aquilla J. Orme, of Atlanta, Ga., and Jas. W. Johnson, of Marion, for appellant.

Hoyt McMillan, of Mullins, for respondent.

GAGE J.

Action upon a contract of insurance. Verdict for the plaintiff for $531.33. Appeal by the defendant. The insurance was of the plaintiffs' life, and for $2,000; but the contract evidenced by the policy had this clause written in it, to wit:

"If the insured shall furnish to the company due proof that he has become physically disabled, and wholly continuously, and permanently incapacitated from carrying on any gainful occupation, then in such case, immediately on such proof as aforesaid being furnished to the company, the policy shall mature as an endowment to the extent of one-fourth of the amount insured hereunder, which shall thereupon be paid in cash to the insured, in part payment of the amount insured hereunder."

The operation of that clause on the testimony in the case makes this lawsuit. The company insists that the testimony offered by the plaintiff does not tend to prove that he "has become physically disabled, and wholly, continuously, and permanently incapacitated from carrying on any gainful occupation." Therefore the defendant esteems that it was entitled to have the trial court to so direct the jury. And, while there are three exceptions, the appellant's counsel stated at the hearing that the chief ground of the appeal was for the court's refusal to direct a verdict. To that alone we shall direct our attention; for we are of the opinion that the first and third exceptions are so devoid of merit as to need no discussion.

It was stated by the general counsel of the company, and in the oral argument, that clauses like that in issue first began to be written in 1906, and that there has been no general construction of the clause by the courts of last resort. The insistence of the defendant is that the plaintiff's own testimony, instead of proving total disability, negatives that conclusion. So the case depends upon what the plaintiff has said and the operation of his contract thereupon. If there may be two reasonable opinions about the result of this process of deduction, then the court was right to leave the inference to the jury. That rule, like rules of law generally, is plain enough; the rub comes in its application to the facts.

We are satisfied that the court was right to submit the issue to a jury. The setting of the case is this: The plaintiff is a man of 60 years; he is a three-horse farmer; he never learned to read and he only learned to write his name, and he cannot do that now; he was suddenly stricken down during January while doing manual...