Title: Colonial Life and Accident Insurance Co. v. Collins

State: alabama

Issuer: Alabama Supreme Court

Document:

194 So. 2d 532 (1967)
COLONIAL LIFE AND ACCIDENT INSURANCE CO.
v.
Orene Sanders COLLINS, Executrix.
2 Div. 491.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
January 26, 1967.
*533 J. H. Curry, Carrollton, and Dominick, Roberts & Davidson, Tuscaloosa, for appellant.
V. W. Elmore, Gordo, for appellee.
GOODWYN, Justice.
Suit on an insurance policy brought by the deceased insured's widow, as executrix of his will. There was verdict and judgment for plaintiff for $5,000, the amount of the policy. Defendant appeals from that judgment and also from the judgment overruling its motion for a new trial.
The pertinent provisions of the policy are as follows:
The policy discloses no named beneficiary; nor does the evidence otherwise show the designation of a beneficiary by the insured. In the absence of a designated beneficiary, the insured's widow is the beneficiary.
The principal and decisive question before us is whether it was error to refuse defendant's requested affirmative charge with hypothesis. Defendant insists that there is no evidence to support a finding that the insured's injuries causing his death were sustained in a manner covered by the policy, specifically, "while riding in or driving" a taxicab, which is the coverage relied on by plaintiff. Our conclusion is that the affirmative charge should have been given.
The insured was employed as a taxi driver in Aliceville. He was murdered on the night of February 9, 1964, or the early morning hours of February 10. He was last seen alive around 5 o'clock on the afternoon of February 9. At that time a Negro named James Hinton was seen sitting in insured's taxicab outside the taxi stand in Aliceville and shortly thereafter the insured was seen headed toward Pickensville on Highway 14 (Aliceville-Pickensville Highway) with a Negro in the car.
Insured's body was found in the early morning hours of February 10. His throat was cut and he had six or seven stab wounds in the chest, as well as other injuries. The body was found at the edge of a field next to a dirt road about 300 yards from Highway 14 and about 200 or 300 yards from the taxicab, which was on another dirt road.
Highway 14 runs generally in a northwesterly-southeasterly direction. The area where insured's body and the taxicab were found is to the south and west of Highway 14. A dirt road intersects Highway 14 from the south and then forks, with one fork going in an easterly direction and the other in a westerly direction. The taxicab was found on the east road and insured's body was found in an old field near the west road. The taxicab had been burned, thus destroying any evidence which might have been found in it. Although a search was made, no blood or human tracks were found around the taxicab.
There was a "turning around place" for vehicles on the west road and insured's body was approximately 10 or 15 steps from this place. Blood was found near the turning around place and considerable blood was found on the ground under insured's head. A "stick", about 2 or 3 feet long and 6 or 8 inches in diameter, with blood on it, was found in the turning around place, as were a fountain pen, a plastic pencil holder and the upper plate of a set of false teeth, identified as belonging to the insured. There was testimony that the "stick" was a broken tree limb apparently taken from a fallen tree which was in the turning around place. There was no direct evidence as to where the insured was, nor what he was doing, when he received his injuries, nor the circumstances leading up to his injuries.
*535 As already noted, the question is whether the jury's finding that the insured received his injuries "while riding in or driving" the taxicab is supported by the evidence or a reasonable inference therefrom. We find no evidential support for such finding, and are impelled to the conclusion that the verdict rests on supposition, conjecture, speculation or guesswork and cannot stand.
It is a well-established principle that insurance contracts will be construed most strongly against the insurer. See: Trinity Universal Insurance Co., Dallas, Tex. v. Wills, 273 Ala. 648, 143 So. 2d 846; McKee v. Exchange Insurance Association, 270 Ala. 518, 120 So. 2d 690; Colonial Life & Accident Ins. Co. v. Shotts, 267 Ala. 525, 103 So. 2d 181; New York Life Ins. Co. v. Torrance, 224 Ala. 614, 141 So. 547. But, where there is no ambiguity in the terms of the contract, it must be enforced as written, for a court has no authority to make a new contract for the parties. See: Woodall v. National Life & Accident Ins. Co., 269 Ala. 606, 114 So. 2d 889; Chemstrand Corp. v. Maryland Casualty Co., 266 Ala. 626, 98 So. 2d 1; McGifford v. Protective Life Ins. Co., 227 Ala. 588, 151 So. 349. The terms of this insurance contract are clear and unambiguous. The policy provides for payment of benefits if the insured sustains bodily injuries while riding in or driving a taxicab. It does not provide for payment if the insured is injured "on the job," or while "acting within the line and scope of his employment," or "during working hours." Nor does the policy contain any other language effectively broadening its coverage.
The burden was on plaintiff to prove that the insured's death resulted from injuries sustained in such manner as to bring him within the coverage of the policy. See: Life & Casualty Ins. Co. of Tenn. v. Garrett, 250 Ala. 521, 35 So. 2d 109. She has not met this burden. We do not find a scintilla of evidence that the insured was injured "while riding in or driving" the taxicab.
It could be that he did receive his injuries "while riding in or driving" the taxicab, but there is not any evidence, nor a reasonable inference from evidence, which would support such a finding. It could be that insured's passenger attacked insured while insured was "riding in or driving" the taxicab, but a finding to this effect necessarily would be the product of pure supposition, speculation, conjecture or guesswork. We do not find any evidence, or reasonable inference from evidence, that this occurred. The following circumstances tend to show that the injuries were received some distance away from the taxicab, viz.: There were no car tracks to indicate that the taxicab had ever been on the westerly road, near which insured's body was found; there is nothing in the evidence indicating that insured's body was pulled, pushed or dragged from the taxicab; found in the "turning around place" were several personal items belonging to the insured, and also a broken limb on which there was some blood, but there is no evidence of any blood being on the ground in the "turning around place"; a large amount of blood was found on the ground under insured's head, thus tending to indicate that the actual knifing took place at that point; and the body was found 200 or 300 yards from the burned taxicab. In short, we simply do not find any evidence indicating that the insured was anywhere near the taxicab when he received his injuries. It might be that the taxicab contained some evidence indicating that insured was attacked while in it, but there is no evidence to this effect. It would be pure supposition, speculation or conjecture to say that there must have been such evidence, but it was destroyed by burning the taxicab.
Our conclusion is that only on the basis of supposition, speculation, conjecture or guesswork can it be held, under the evidence presented, that plaintiff has met the burden on her of proving that insured's injuries, resulting in his death, were sustained "while riding in or driving" the taxicab.
*536 Plaintiff's position is thus stated in her brief:
Where, as here, the only basis for a verdict in favor of plaintiff rests on mere supposition, speculation, conjecture or guesswork, the defendant's requested affirmative charge should be given. See: Davis v. Birmingham Electric Co., 250 Ala. 98, 33 So. 2d 355; Southern Ry. Co. v. Woodstock Mills, 230 Ala. 494, 161 So. 519; Continental Casualty Co. v. Paul, 209 Ala. 166, 95 So. 814, 30 A.L.R. 802. As stated in the last case:
Appellant's request for the affirmative charge should have been granted.
We do not find where this court has construed or applied the phrase "while riding in or driving" a motor vehicle. However, we note the following cases from other jurisdictions, viz.:
Recovery has been allowed in the following situations: Where the deceased died from carbon monoxide poisoning when his car stalled in a mud hole on a cold day, Johnson v. Federal Life Ins. Co., 60 N.D. 397, 234 N.W. 661; where a man injured his leg when his car door slammed on it, Fowler v. First National Life Ins. Co., 71 N.M. 364, 378 P.2d 605; where a milk truck driver was injured while getting milk from the cooler compartment of his immobile truck and while he was inside the truck, Veillon v. Combined Ins. Co., La.App., 166 So. 2d 307; where a girl died from carbon monoxide poisoning while parked on a road with her boy friend, Brown v. Hearthstone Ins. Co., 19 A.D.2d 578, 240 N.Y.S.2d 239; and, where the insured jumped from a car which was rolling out of control down a hill, Wright v. Aetna Life Ins. Co., 10 F.2d 281, 46 A.L.R. 225 (3d Cir. 1926).
Recovery was denied in the following cases: Where an insured was hit by another vehicle while outside his car putting gas into his vehicle, Goodman v. Mutual Benefit Health & Acc. Assoc., Sup., 214 N.Y.S.2d 591; where the insured apparently committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning inside a car in a closed garage (the court there said "driving" an automobile did not include this accident since driving means to urge forward under guidance, compel to go in a particular direction, urge onward, and direct the course of), Mould v. Travelers' Mutual Casualty Co., 219 Iowa 16, 257 N.W. 349; and where an insured motorist drove into a pole causing an electric wire to fall across his car which resulted in his electrocution when, after having left the car for a few minutes, he returned and grabbed the door handle, Wertman v. Michigan Mutual Liability Co., 267 Mich. 508, 255 N.W. 418.
In all of these cases the evidence clearly showed how the insured was injured. The *538 jury and court were not left to speculate or guess as to how the insured sustained his injuries, or where he was physically located when he was injured or killed.
One question presented, which necessarily will arise on a retrial of the case, concerns the capacity in which the insured's widow brings the suit.
As already noted, the widow is the beneficiary under the policy, the insured not having designated another beneficiary. Appellant makes the point that the suit should have been brought by the widow in her individual capacity and not as executrix of insured's will. While we agree with this, the rule is that a plaintiff, suing as an individual in his own right, may amend so that the suit can proceed in his representative capacity (Edwards v. Smith, 240 Ala. 397, 199 So. 811; Ex parte Cross, 247 Ala. 85, 22 So.2d 378), or vice versa (Lucas v. Pittman, 94 Ala. 616, 10 So. 603). And it is also the rule that, where there is a variance between the pleading and proof, which could have been cured by an amendment of the pleading, the trial court will not be put in error for admitting such proof unless there was a special objection making the point as to the variance. See: Nelson v. Nelson, 249 Ala. 482, 31 So. 2d 685; Rules of Practice in Circuit and Inferior Courts, Rule 34, Code 1940, Tit. 7, Appendix, p. 1035 (Recompiled Code 1958 (unofficial), Tit. 7, Appendix, p. 1200). The record reveals that no such objection was made when the insurance policy was offered in evidence.
On a retrial of the case, appellee should be allowed to amend the complaint in the respect indicated.
Reversed and remanded.
LAWSON, COLEMAN and HARWOOD, JJ., concur.