Source: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/113/316.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 21:54:30+00:00

Document:
BAYLIS v. TRAVELERS' INS CO OF HARTFORD, CONN.
'This action is brought upon a policy of insurance against accident, issued by the defendants, whereby they agree to pay to the plaintiff the sum of $10,000, 'within ninety days after sufficient proof that the insured, William E. P. Baylis, at any time within the continuance of the policy, shall have sustained bodily injuries effected through external, violent, and accidental means, within the intent and meaning of this contract [113 U.S. 316, 318] and the conditions hereunto annexed, and such injuries alone shall have occasioned death within ninety days from the happening thereof.' The contract contained the following proviso: 'provided, that this insurance shall not extend to any death or disability which may have been caused wholly or in part by any surgical operation, or medical or mechanical treatment for disease.' The cause was tried before the court and a jury, when, upon the evidence adduced, a verdict for the plaintiff was directed, subject to the opinion of the court upon the question whether the facts proved were sufficient to render the defendants liable upon their policy. The following are the facts, as derived from the evidence, and in stating them I adopt the conclusions of fact most favorable to the plaintiff that the evidence will permit to be drawn: The insured died on the twentieth of November, 1872. A week or so previous to his death he was suffering from influenza, the result of a cold, and was then treated therefor by his physician. He began to get better, when, on Friday night before his death, he had an attack of cholera morbus, accompanied with convulsions, which seemed to completely shatter his nervous system, and left him in a wholly nervous state. On Monday following he was again better, proposed to go to business, and asked his physician, on account of restlessness, to give him some opiate for a quiet night's sleep. The physician ordered a preparation of opium, and directed him to take twenty drops of it before going to bed. He was at this time taking chloral, under the same medical advice, and the opium was directed to be taken in addition to a prescribed dose of chloral. That night the insured took the prescribed dose of chloral, and, as may be inferred from the facts shown, a dose of opium also. There is no direct evidence as to the quantity of opium he took, but I shall treat the case as if the evidence respecting the symptoms that followed, and the actions of the insured, was sufficient to warrant a jury in finding that, through inadvertence, the insured took more opium than he intended to take, and such a quantity that his death was caused thereby. It is by no means clear that such finding would be warranted by the evidence given, and it is certain that no conclusion more favorable to the plaintiff can [113 U.S. 316, 319] be drawn from the proofs. I am, therefore, to determine whether, as matter of law, such a death is within the scope of the policy sued on. Upon this question my opinion is adverse to the plaintiff. As I view the evidence, the death was caused by 'medical treatment for disease,' and, if so, it was excepted by the terms of the policy.
John L. Hill, for plaintiff in error.
F. E. Mather, for defendant in error.
If, after the plaintiff's case had been closed, the court had directed a verdict for the defendant on the ground that the evidence, with all inferences that the jury could justifiably draw from it, was insufficient to support a verdict for the plaintiff, so that such a verdict, if returned, must be set aside, it would have followed a practice sanctioned by repeated decisions of this court. Randall v. Baltimore & O. R. Co. 109 U.S. 478 ; S. C. 3 SUP. CT. REP. 322, and cases there cited. And, in that event, the plaintiff, having duly excepted to the ruling in a bill of exceptions, setting out all the evidence, upon a writ of error, would have been entitled to the judgment of this court, whether, as a matter of law, the ruling against him was erroneous. Or, if in the present case, a verdict having been taken for the plaintiff by direction of the court, subject to its opinion whether the evidence was sufficient to sustain it, the court had subsequently granted a motion on behalf of the defendant for a new trial, and set aside the verdict, on the ground of the insufficiency of the evidence, it would have followed a common practice, in respect to which error could not have been alleged, or it might, with propriety, have reserved the question, what judgment should be rendered, and in favor of what party, upon an agreed statement of facts, and afterwards rendered judgment upon its conclusions of law. But, without a waiver of the right of trial by jury, by consent of parties, the court errs if it substitutes itself for the jury, and, passing upon the effect [113 U.S. 316, 321] of the evidence, finds the facts involved in the issue, and renders judgment thereon.
This is what was done in the present case. It may be that the conclusions of fact reached and stated by the court are correct, and, when properly ascertained, that they require such a judgment as was rendered. That is a question not before us. The plaintiff in error complains that he was entitled to have the evidence submitted to the jury, and to the benefit of such conclusions of fact as it might justifiably have drawn; a right he demanded and did not waive; and that he has been deprived of it, by the act of the court, in entering a judgment against him on its own view of the evidence, without the intervention of a jury. In this particular, we think error has been well assigned.
The right of trial by jury in the courts of the United States is expressly secured by the seventh article of amendment to the constitution, and congress has, by statute, provided for the trial of issues of fact in civil cases y the court without the intervention of a jury, only when the parties waive their right to a jury by a stipulation in writing. Rev. St . 648, 649. This constitutional right this court has always guarded with jealousy. Doe v. Grymes, 1 Pet. 469; D'Wolf v. Rabaud, Id. 476; Castle v. Bullard, 23 How. 172; Hodges v. Easton, 106 U.S. 408 ; S. C. 1 SUP. CT. REP. 307.
For error in this particular the judgment is reversed, and the cause is remanded, with directions to grant a new trial.

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