Case ID: ga-app_70/html/0006-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Broyles, C. J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

30170.
    GABRILES et al. v. SUN LIFE ASSURANCE COMPANY OF CANADA.
    Decided September 29, 1943.
    
      Judson Andrews, George O. Mitchell, for plaintiffs.
    
      Grover Middlebroolcs, for defendant.
   Broyles, C. J.

On the trial the undisputed evidence showed that the insured was a regular patient of Dr. Rufus Dorsey during the years 1936 and 1937, and that Dr. Dorsey gave her digitalis and nitroglycerin as heart stimulants. The following evidence also was undisputed: On January 12, 1937, Dr. Jeff L. Richardson examined the insured with an electrocardiogram, an instrument used in diagnosis of heart disease, and found that she had a coronary disease. Dr. Newdicate Owensby treated the insured for two years before her death, and found she had high-blood pressure and some organic heart disturbance. Dr. William F. Lake, in March, 1934, made an x-ray picture of the heart, chest, and lungs of the insured. The above-stated evidence was undisputed. Further, the uncontradicted evidence was that in issuing the policy the defendant relied upon the representations made by the insured in the application. 1

In our opinion, the foregoing undisputed evidence demanded a finding that the insured made several material misrepresentations in her answers to the questions propounded in her application for the policy. The misrepresentations were material in that they, changed the nature, extent, and character of the risk. Whether misrepresentations are material is ordinarily a question for the jury; but where, as here, the evidence excludes every reasonable inference except that they were material, no issue is presented upon that point for determination by the jury, and it is not necessary for the insurance company to show actual moral fraud on the part of the insured. Jefferson Standard Life &c. Insurance Co. v. Henderson, 37 Ga. App. 704 (141 S. E. 498); National Life & Accident Insurance Co. v. Preston, 68 Ga. App. 614, 616 (23 S. E. 2d, 526).

The court did not err in directing the verdict for the defendant.

Judgment affirmed.

MacIntyre •and Gardner, JJ., concur.