United States v. Patryas
| Decision Date | 28 February 1938 |
| Docket Number | No. 445,445 |
| Citation | 82 L.Ed. 883,303 U.S. 341,58 S.Ct. 551 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES v. PATRYAS |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Messrs. Homer S. Cummings, Atty. Gen., and Wilbur C. Pickett, of Washington, D.C., for the United States.
Mr. Warren E. Miller, of Washington, D.C., for respondent.
January 31, 1918, Stanley J. Patryas (respondent), then a soldier, purchased from the government a $10,000 yearly renewable war risk insurance contract which he permitted to lapse after his honorable discharge from the Army July 29, 1919. June 28, 1927, while a patient at a Veterans' Government Hospital, he obtained reinstatement of his war risk policy and immediately converted it into a five-year renewable term policy upon which he paid premiums to June 1932. Claiming total permanent disability, the veteran obtained, in the District Court, a verdict and judgment on his reinstated policy. Finding the issues for the veteran, the jury fixed the date of permanent total disability at 1924—a date three years before his policy was reinstated.
The Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed.1
The government's right to contest this policy is limited by the following statutory provision:2
'Policies of insurance * * * issued, reinstated, or converted shall be incontestable from the date of issuance, reinstatement, or conversion, except for fraud, nonpayment of premiums, or on the ground that the applicant was not a member of the military or naval forces of the United States.'
The question here is:
Can the government, in the absence of fraud or bad faith, 'contest' and defeat payment of total permanent disability insurance, sold to a World War veteran, on the ground that the veteran was totally and permanently disabled before the policy was reinstated and converted?
First. The government contends that 'Congress has not, * * * authorized * * * insurance benefits for total, permanent disability existing prior to any contract of insurance on which the claim is made.'
The original War Risk Insurance Act of October 6, 1917,3 provided:
'That in order to give to every commissioned officer and enlisted man and to every member of the Army Nurse Corps (female) and of the Navy Nurse Corps (female) when employed in active service under the War Department or Navy Department greater protection for themselves and their dependents, * * * the United States, upon application to the bureau and without medical examination, shall grant insurance against the death or total permanent disability of any such person.'
The War Risk Insurance Act must be considered in the light of its passage during war, while men and women were being called into war service. This requires recognition of its generous and liberal purpose to provide 'greater protection for (soldiers, sailors and nurses) and their dependents.'4 Its passage indicated Congress conclusively presumed that every person, who had successfully undergone mental and physical examination for war service, was when inducted into such service—insurable against death and total permanent disability.5 The act commanded that insurance against death and total permanent disability be granted, without medical examination, to every applicant who had previously been examined and accepted for war service. Congress manifestly intended by these sweeping provisions that policies should be granted without regard to the health of applicants and should be enforceable obligations against the government. Any other construction of this broad, war- time legislative grant to soldiers, sailors and nurses would take away the benefits Congress intended them to receive. The provisions of the War Risk Insurance Act are sufficiently comprehensive and inclusive to authorize its administrators to grant insurance covering past or future total permanent disability, if such action is found necessary to carry out its far reaching national plan and purposes.
Second. It is contended that the government can contest liability on the ground that the veteran was totally and permanently disabled prior to the reinstatement, despite the provision that such policy 'shall be incontestable * * * except for fraud, nonpayment of premiums, or on the ground that the applicant was not a member of the military or naval forces of the United States.' It is urged that this provision 'has no application where, as here, the validity of the policy is not questioned and liability under it is denied solely on the ground that a loss has not occurred during the period of insurance protection.' However, it is admitted that this policy did not 'expressly exclude total permanent disability occurring prior to insurance protection as did the language of the original term contract.'
This converted policy of insurance provided protection against loss from two causes: Namely, death and total permanent disability. A provision making a policy 'incontestable' except for certain clearly designated reasons is wholly meaningless and ineffective if, after proof of the loss insured against, the policy can be contested upon grounds wholly different from those set out in the exception. The object of the provision is to assure the insured that payment on his policy will not be delayed by contests and lawsuits on grounds not saved by the exceptions.6 Here, it has been established that the veteran is totally and permanently disabled. Yet his policy is contested on the ground that it does not insure against this disability because it existed before the policy was issued. If this defense can be interposed, his policy has never actually protected him against total permanent disability. Since permanent total disability is one of the two risks insured against in the policy, any contest (not based on the exceptions) which may prevent the policyholder's recovery for such admitted total permanent disability—existing while the policy is in force—is a 'contest' forbidden by the 'incontestable' provision.
No legal obstacle prevents parties, if they so desire, from entering into contracts of insurance to protect against loss that may possibly have already occurred. Marine insurance and antedated fire insurance policies frequently afford protection against risks which, unknown to the parties, have already attached.7
Even with the benefit of scrupulous good faith, it is not always easy to determine with complete certainty whether or not total permanent disability exists. This uncertainty may lead an insurer, after his own investigation, and for adequate compensation, to treat unknown past and uncertain prospective disability, upon the same basis. This case is an illustration. Here, the government has never admitted that the veteran is totally and permanently disabled. It not only issued him a policy against such disability—with complete knowledge of his then condition—but in this continued contest has denied that the policyholder was totally and permanently dis- abled at any time—before, when, or after the policy was issued. There was also a sharp conflict of evidence on this disputed fact.
When a policy of disability insurance is issued after complete examination by the insurer and full and fair disclosure by both parties, there is no legal reason why the insurer cannot contract to afford full protection against loss resulting from past as well as prospective disability. This veteran's policy did not expressly limit liability to prospective total permanent disability. The provisions of the policy in this regard contain a promise to pay the veteran 'in * * * event of the total, permanent disability * * * (and) Upon due proof of the total permanent disability while this policy is in force. * * *' Original policies issued under the War Risk Act expressly excluded liability for total permanent disability incurred before the policy 'was applied for.' The deliberate omission, in the converted policies, of this previous exclusion, the language and purport of the original act and its amendments, the administrative interpretations and legislative history, all throw a flood of light on the intention to include liability for disabilities existing prior to the issuance of the policies.
For more than a decade prior to 1934 (during which period this veteran's policy was purchased), the Bureau,...
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