Case ID: ill-app_202/html/0127-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      Mr. Presiding Justice McSurely", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Mary Laski, Appellee, v. National Council, Knights and Ladies of Security, Appellant.
    Gen. No. 22,467.
    (Not to be reported in full.)
    Appeal from the Municipal Court of Chicago; the Hon. John A. Mahoney, Judge, presiding. Heard in this court at the March term, .916.
    Reversed and remanded.
    Opinion filed November 27, 1916.
    Rehearing denied December 11, 1916.
    Statement of the Case.
    Action by Mary Laski, plaintiff, against the National Council, Knights and Ladies of Security, a corporation, defendant, on a benefit certificate of insurance. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals.
    A. W. Fulton, for appellant.
    J. Leonard Brill and Harold O. Mules, for appellee. *
    Abstract of the Decision.
    1. Insurance, § 897
      
      —when question whether insured violated terms of certificate is question for jury. In an action on a benefit certificate, the question whether the deceased had violated his agreement under the certificate or was intemperate in the use of liquors and had died directly or indirectly as a result thereof, which, if so, would under the terms of the certificate prevent a recovery, held for the jury.
    2. Insurance, § 895a*—when exclusion of evidence as to deceased’s habits and cause of death is erroneous. In an action on a benefit certificate, providing that it should become void if the insured became or was intemperate in the use of liquors after his admission, or if his death should result directly or indirectly from the intemperate use of intoxicating liquors, the exclusion of evidence hy a physician that he had examined the insured shortly before his death and that in his opinion the deceased had died of alcoholism, and of testimony of witnesses who worked with him as to his habits with reference to intoxication, held erroneous.
    
      
      See Illinois Notes Digest, Vols. XI to XV, and Cumulative Quarterly, same topic and section number.
    
   Mr. Presiding Justice McSurely

delivered the opinion of the court.