Williams v. Hartford Accident & Indemnity Co.

• Decision Date: 19 June 1984
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: Ernest George WILLIAMS, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. HARTFORD ACCIDENT AND INDEMNITY CO., a Connecticut corporation, Defendant and Respondent. Civ. B002232.

Page 453

204 Cal.Rptr. 453

158 Cal.App.3d 229

Ernest George WILLIAMS, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. HARTFORD ACCIDENT AND INDEMNITY CO., a Connecticut corporation, Defendant and Respondent.

Civ. B002232.

Court of Appeal, Second District, Division 2, California.

June 19, 1984.

Girardi, Keese & Crane by John A. Girardi, Los Angeles, for plaintiff-appellant.

Overton, Lyman & Prince, Kelley K. Beck, Los Angeles, for defendant-respondent.

ROTH, Presiding Justice.

Appellant Ernest George Williams, the beneficiary of a policy of accidental death and dismemberment insurance issued by respondent Hartford Accident and Indemnity Co., filed his complaint for damages in connection therewith on May 20, 1981. In the fashion hereinafter described, respondent was granted summary judgment on June 16, 1983. The facts giving rise to the litigation are as follows.

On May 24, 1978, appellant, while seated at the desk in his law office, observed a round circle in the field of vision of his right eye. When he pressed the small of his finger against his eyelid the spot disappeared. Believing his eyelashes were sticking, he trimmed them. Five days later he had difficulty wearing his contact lenses because of eye irritation. The following morning, May 30th, he awoke at approximately 4:45 a.m. and observed a pie-shaped portion taken out of the lower center section of the field of vision of his right eye. Since he was not in pain, he decided to take his routine, two-mile jog and call his eye doctor after he got to his law office.

Appellant's jog went as always. He experienced no pain, nor did he observe any change in the obstruction in the field of vision of his right eye. He did not fall, bump into anyone, or even stop suddenly. He traveled over the same jogging path he typically traveled.

Later the same morning, appellant was diagnosed as having a detached retina and was hospitalized. On June 2, 1978, he had an eight-hour surgery to correct the condition. Several days later his eye hemorrhaged, and a second corrective surgery took place on August 21 or 22, 1978. On September 28, 1978, he was told for the first time that the surgery had not been successful and that he would never regain any sight in his right eye.

Respondent's answer to appellant's complaint alleged among other things that appellant's loss of vision in his right eye resulted from a sickness or disease and not from an accident. On December 23, 1982, respondent filed its first motion for summary judgment on the grounds, among others, that a routine jog, as a matter of law, does not constitute an "accident." In support of this position respondent submitted appellant's unequivocal deposition testimony that there was nothing unusual about his job other than the pre-existing obstruction in his field of vision. Rather, appellant contended the job was an "accident" inasmuch as he had been told by his doctors that jogging increased the ocular pressure in his eye. According to appellant's testimony, Dr. Stephen J. Ryan advised him that where he may have had just one retinal tear prior to the jog, he ended up with four tears after it. Appellant acknowledged, however, that no doctor ever told him that his jog in any way caused or contributed to his original retinal tear.

Respondent's motion was argued and taken under submission. On February 7, 1983, the trial court ruled, conditionally granting respondent the relief requested. It nonetheless concluded, contrary to respondent's contention, that if appellant's retinal damage occurred suddenly as a result of the May 30th jog, there was a question of fact as to the existence of an "accident."

Pursuant to the trial court's conditional order, appellant filed the declaration of Dr. Ryan, stating appellant's May 30, 1978 job caused additional retinal tears. Respondent's motion was accordingly denied by the trial court on February 22, 1983.

The deposition of Dr. Ryan was thereafter taken by respondent and based upon it a second motion for summary judgment was filed on May 4, 1983, respondent reasserting its position that irrespective of whether the job caused additional retinal tears there was as a matter of law no "accident" and maintaining that even were the trial court's view of the law expressed in its conditional order correct, there was no longer any genuine issue of fact, since Dr. Ryan unequivocally recanted his February 14, 1983 declaration at his deposition.

In that deposition, Dr. Ryan testified it was his opinion the one large "causative retinal tear" which was appellant's "main problem" existed prior to his jogging on May 30th, and that, while appellant's May 24, 1978 observations were compatible with the tear having developed on that date, the large "causative retinal tear," as well as the other retinal tears or holes, could have been there for a substantial period prior to the accident. Moreover, when shown his statement of February 14, 1983, Dr. Ryan indicated that it did not reflect his opinion and that a retinal detachment left untreated was "a blinding disease" and that the only way to reattach a retina so as to prevent blindness was by surgery. He was of the further opinion, however, that the jog increased the amount of subretinal fluid in appellant's right eye and that that increase made the subsequent corrective measures more difficult.

On May 20, 1983, "having read and considered in its entirety [the] deposition of Dr. Ryan taken on April 5, 1983," the trial court granted respondent's second motion for summary judgment. This appeal followed. We affirm.

Respondent's insurance policy provided for the payment of $75,000 when the loss of sight in one eye "result[s] from injury sustained by the insured * * *." "Injury," in turn, was defined to mean "bodily injury sustained by the insured * * * caused by an accident occurring while this policy is in force * * * and which results directly and independently of all other causes in loss covered by this policy."

An exclusion provided the policy did not apply to loss resulting from "Sickness or disease, or medical or surgical treatment thereof, * * *."

From this it will be seen that the only injuries compensable under the policy were those caused by an "accident," a term not specifically defined in the policy. In spite of the absence of such definition, the trial court herein, as noted, was of the opinion the facts associated with appellant's injury did not, as a matter of law, involve an accident, based, in its words, on "the teaching of cases such as Geddes & Smith, Inc. v. St. Paul Mercury Indemnity Co. (1959) 51 Cal.2d 558 [564, 334 P.2d 881] * * * that injury or damage resulting from a series of imperceptible events that finally culminate in a single tangible harm is not accidental; [but that where] there is a specific event which manifests itself at an identifiable time which caused identifiable harm at the time it occurred, it may be accidental * * *." Applying the stated rationale to the facts present here, the trial court concluded appellant's injury was not within the coverage provided by respondent's policy, because what was shown was that while appellant's condition was...