Western Reserve Life Ins. Co. v. Meadows

Decision Date07 October 1953
Docket NumberNo. A-4140,A-4140
Citation152 Tex. 559,261 S.W.2d 554
PartiesWESTERN RESERVE LIFE INS. CO. v. MEADOWS.
CourtTexas Supreme Court

J. W. Wheeler, Austin, Webster Atwell, Dallas, for petitioner.

Alexander & Martin, Fort Worth, for respondent.

SMEDLEY, Justice.

The controlling question is: Did the accidental death of the insured on August 23, 1951, occur 'in time of war'.

Petitioner Western Reserve Life Insurance Company on October 6, 1932, issued to Benjamin Earle Meadows five policies, each insuring his life for $1,000 and naming as beneficiary his wife, respondent Jennie Louise Davidson Meadows. Attached to each policy as a part of it was a supplemental contract providing for payment to the beneficiary of the additional sum of $1,000 in the event of death of the insured by accidental means. The supplemental contract contains the following: 'This Accidental Death Benefit shall be void if the Insured shall be in military, naval, or allied service in time of war at the date of the accident.'

The insured at the time of the accident was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army Engineers Corps of the United States, was in the military service, and was traveling as a passenger in a United States Army plane under official orders and bound for Fairbanks, Alaska, where he was to open bids for the construction of a United States Army Air Field near Fairbanks. He was instantly killed when the plane crashed and burned in Alaska.

Petitioner, the insurer, admitted liability for and paid the face amount of the policies for life insurance, but denied liability for the additional accidental death benefits provided for in the supplemental contracts. In this suit, tried without a jury, judgment was rendered by the District Court in favor of respondent against petitioner for $5,000, the total amount of the accidental death benefits, together with penalties and attorney's fees. The Court of Civil Appeals affirmed that judgment. 256 S.W.2d 674.

In a thorough opinion, and after reviewing many authorities, the Court of Civil Appeals expressed the conclusion that the insured's death on August 23, 1951, 'did not occur 'in time of war,' under the Constitution and laws of the United States and under the terms of the exclusion clause of the insurance policies.' 256 S.W.2d 683. The opinion, as appears from its reasoning and quotations, is based on the belief that the conflict being waged in Korea at the time of the insured's death was not 'war' in the 'constitutional' or 'legal' sense of that term, because Congress had not, as it never has, formally declared war against North Korea. With the conclusion reached by the Court of Civil Appeals we cannot agree.

It is true that the Constitution, by Section 8 of Article I, gives to Congress 'Power * * * To declare War', and that Congress has not in so many words by formal Act declared war against North Korea or against Communist China. There are, however, in many of the decisions, some of which are cited in the opinion of the Court of Civil Appeals and relied upon by respondent, statements to the effect that an Act of Congress which recognizes the existence of war or which is passed in aid or furtherance of existing war is in effect and meaning a declaration of war. For example, in Bishop v. Jones and Petty, 28 Tex. 294, 319, it is said: 'But still there can be no war by its government, of which the court can take judicial knowledge, until there has been some act or declaration creating or recognizing its existence by the department of the government clothed with the war-making power.' (Emphasis added.)

The opinion of Justice Grier in the Prize cases (The Amy Warwick), 2 Black. 635, 17 L.Ed. 459, 477, involving the question whether a war de facto between the states existed in 1861 prior to the formal declaration of war by Congress, contains the following: 'If it were necessary to the technical existence of a war that it should have legislative sanction, we find it in almost every Act passed at the extraordinary session of the Legislature of 1861, which was wholly employed in enacting laws to enable the government to prosecute the war with vigor and efficiency.'

The opinion in Pang v. Sun Assurance Co. of Canada, 37 Hawaii 208, 218, after referring to several decisions by United States courts, says: 'Those cases are authority for the admitted proposition that no 'formal' declaration is necessary to the creation of a 'state of war', and that by making payment to the officers and men engaged on a war basis and other informal acts the Congress recognizes the existence of a 'condition' of war.' See also Hamilton v. McClaughry, C.C., 136 F. 445, 451; Bas v. Tingy, 4 Dall. 37, 1 L.Ed. 731, 733-734; State of Virginia v. West Virginia, 11 Wall. 39, 20 L.Ed. 67, 72-73; Wharton v. Wise, 153 U.S. 155, 38 L.Ed. 669, 676.

When the United Nations, after the invasion of South Korea in 1950, called upon member nations to render assistance to repel the invasion, the United States promptly furnished its vigorous support, and combatant activities to which the armed forces of the United States were committed commenced in Korea on or about June 25, 1950, and continued without interruption to and including the date of the death of the insured, Benjamin Earle Meadows. Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force personnel of the United States in great numbers participated in combat with the enemy forces of North Korea, and later with those also of Communist China. Congressional support of the action in Korea, which we know was in fact war on a large scale, was necessary, and was freely and generously given in many Acts of Congress by which provision was made for support of the armed forces employed, for increased military man power and equipment, and for economic stabilization. Many of those Acts of Congress, including vast appropriations for the support of the armed forces in Korea, are referred to in the dissenting opinion of Chief Justice Vinson in the steel mill seizure case, Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, 72 S.Ct. 863, 96 L.Ed. 1153, 1215, 1216-1218, 26 A.L.R.2d 1378. Reference is there made to the one hundred thirty billion dollars appropriated by Congress for our armed defense and for military assistance to our Allies since the June, 1950, attack in Korea, to the Mutual Security Act of 1951, 22 U.S.C.A. § 1651 et seq., to the grant by Congress of authority to draft men into the armed forces, to the increase in appropriations to the Department of Defense, which had averaged less than thirteen billion dollars per year for the three years before the attack in Korea, to forty-eight billion dollars for the year 1951. There were other Acts of Congress recognizing the existence of war in Korea and enabling the government to prosecute it with vigor and efficiency, such as the Servicemen's Indemnity Act, 38 U.S.C.A. § 851 et seq., a new GI Bill of Rights, 38 U.S.C.A. § 694 et seq., the 1950 Amendment to the Revenue Act, 26 U.S.C.A. and again more appropriations. Those Acts were in acknowledgment of the fact of war in which the Nation was engaged. And to use the language of Justice Grier in his opinion in the Prize cases above quoted, if it is necessary to the technical existence of war that it have legislative sanction, the Acts of Corgress above referred to gave that sanction.

Decision of this case could well be placed on the ground that if the word 'war' used in the policies of insurance was intended to mean 'technical war', or 'legal war', that is, war declared by Congress, the Acts of Congress prior to the death of the insured should be considered in effect to amount to a declaration of war. We prefer, however, to meet squarely the very question presented, which is whether the word 'war' used in the phrase 'in time of war' in the policies means war in fact or means war declared by Congress.

It is the settled law in this state that contracts of insurance in their construction are governed by the same rules as other contracts, and that terms used in them are to be given their plain, ordinary and generally accepted meaning unless the instrument itself shows them to have been used in a technical or different sense. Hall v. Mutual Benefit Health & Accident Ass'n, Tex.Civ.App., 220 S.W.2d 934, 936, application for writ of error refused; Aetna Life Insurance Co. v. Reed, Tex.Sup., 251 S.W.2d 150, 152-153; National Security Life & Casualty Co. v. Davis, Tex.Sup., 257 S.W.2d 943, 944.

Undoubtedly there may be war or a state of war without a declaration of war by the department of government clothed with the war-making power. Justice Jackson, in his concurring opinion in the steel mills seizure case said: 'Of course, a state of war may in fact exist without a formal declaration.' Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, 72 S.Ct. 863, 873, 96 L.Ed. 1153, 1202-1203, 26 A.L.R.2d 1378; Edwin Borchard, discussing under the title 'When Did the War Begin', the decision of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals in New York Life Insurance Company v. Bennion, 10 Cir., 158 F.2d 260, and other decisions, said: 'It is common knowledge that war may exist without a declaration thereof.' And on the authorities reviewed he expressed this conclusion: 'It thus appears that war may be deduced from the circumstances as a fact and may exist independently of a declaration by Congress.' 47 Columbia Law Review, pp. 742, 745, 748.

Many definitions of war and many decisions reflect the common understanding of war as war in fact. The opinion in the Prize cases (The Amy Warwick), 2 Black. 635, 17 L.Ed. 459, 476, quotes with approval a definition of was as 'That state in which a nation prosecutes its right by force.' In Stankus v. New York Life Insurance Co., 312 Mass. 366, 44 N.E.2d 687, 688, 689, the court said, citing authorities: 'A conflict between the armed forces of two nations under authority of their respective governments would be commonly regarded as war.' In the...

To continue reading

Request your trial
125 cases
  • Lamar Homes, Inc. v. Mid-Continent Cas. Co.
    • United States
    • Supreme Court of Texas
    • August 31, 2007
    ...Terms that are not defined in a policy are given their generally accepted or commonly understood meaning. W. Reserve Life Ins. v. Meadows, 152 Tex. 559, 261 S.W.2d 554, 557 (Tex.1953). The insurance carrier submits that the damages alleged here for repairs to the home are direct economic da......
  • Sw. Bell Tel. Co. v. Fitch
    • United States
    • U.S. District Court — Southern District of Texas
    • July 22, 2011
    ...or different sense." Id. (citing Heritage Res., Inc. v. NationsBank, 939 S.W.2d 118, 121 (Tex.1996), W. Reserve Life Ins. Co. v. Meadows, 152 Tex. 559, 261 S.W.2d 554, 557 (1953), and Provident Life & Accident Ins. v. Knott, 128 S.W.3d 211, 219 (Tex. 2003)). "Language should be given its pl......
  • Lamar Homes, Inc. v. Mid-Continent Cas. Co.
    • United States
    • Supreme Court of Texas
    • August 31, 2007
    ...Terms that are not defined in a policy are given their generally accepted or commonly understood meaning. W. Reserve Life Ins. v. Meadows, 152 Tex. 559, 261 S.W.2d 554, 557 (Tex.1953). The insurance carrier submits that the damages alleged here for repairs to the home are direct economic da......
  • Southwestern Bell Tel. Co.  v. Fitch
    • United States
    • U.S. District Court — Southern District of Texas
    • July 22, 2011
    ...or different sense.” Id. (citing Heritage Res., Inc. v. NationsBank, 939 S.W.2d 118, 121 (Tex.1996), W. Reserve Life Ins. Co. v. Meadows, 152 Tex. 559, 261 S.W.2d 554, 557 (1953), and Provident Life & Accident Ins. v. Knott, 128 S.W.3d 211, 219 (Tex.2003)). “Language should be given its pla......
  • Request a trial to view additional results

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT