Source: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/303/341.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-18 13:50:34+00:00

Document:
Messrs. Homer S. Cummings, Atty. Gen., and Wilbur C. Pickett, of Washington, D.C., for the United States.
January 31, 1918, Stanley J. Patryas (respondent), then a soldier, purchased from the government a $10,000 yearly renewable war risk insurance contract which he permitted to lapse after his honorable discharge from the Army July 29, 1919. June 28, 1927, while a patient at a Veterans' Government Hospital, he obtained reinstatement of his war risk policy and immediately converted it into a five-year renewable term policy upon which he paid premiums to June 1932. Claiming total permanent disability, the veteran obtained, in the District Court, a verdict and judgment on his reinstated policy. Finding the issues for the veteran, the jury fixed the date of permanent total disability at 1924-a date three years before his policy was reinstated.
Can the government, in the absence of fraud or bad faith, 'contest' and defeat payment of total permanent disability insurance, sold to a World War veteran, on the ground that the veteran was totally and permanently disabled before the policy was reinstated and converted?
The War Risk Insurance Act must be considered in the light of its passage during war, while men and women were being called into war service. This requires recognition of its generous and liberal purpose to provide 'greater protection for (soldiers, sailors and nurses) and their dependents.' 4 Its passage indicated Congress conclusively presumed that every person, who had successfully undergone mental and physical examination for war service, was-when inducted into such service-insurable against death and total permanent disability. 5 The act commanded that insurance against death and total permanent disability be granted, without medical examination, to every applicant who had previously been examined and accepted for war service. Congress manifestly intended by these sweeping provisions that policies should be granted without regard to the health of applicants and should be enforceable obligations against the government. Any other construction of this broad, war- [303 U.S. 341, 344] time legislative grant to soldiers, sailors and nurses would take away the benefits Congress intended them to receive. The provisions of the War Risk Insurance Act are sufficiently comprehensive and inclusive to authorize its administrators to grant insurance covering past or future total permanent disability, if such action is found necessary to carry out its far reaching national plan and purposes.
This converted policy of insurance provided protection against loss from two causes: Namely, death and total permanent disability. A provision making a policy 'incontestable' except for certain clearly designated reasons is wholly meaningless and ineffective if, after proof of the loss insured against, the policy can be contested upon grounds wholly different from those set out in the exception. The object of the provision is to assure the insured that payment on his policy will not be delayed by contests and lawsuits on grounds not saved by the exceptions. 6 Here, it has been established that the veteran is [303 U.S. 341, 345] totally and permanently disabled. Yet his policy is contested on the ground that it does not insure against this disability because it existed before the policy was issued. If this defense can be interposed, his policy has never actually protected him against total permanent disability. Since permanent total disability is one of the two risks insured against in the policy, any contest (not based on the exceptions) which may prevent the policyholder's recovery for such admitted total permanent disability- existing while the policy is in force-is a 'contest' forbidden by the 'incontestable' provision.
Even with the benefit of scrupulous good faith, it is not always easy to determine with complete certainty whether or not total permanent disability exists. This uncertainty may lead an insurer, after his own investigation, and for adequate compensation, to treat unknown past and uncertain prospective disability, upon the same basis. This case is an illustration. Here, the government has never admitted that the veteran is totally and permanently disabled. It not only issued him a policy against such disability-with complete knowledge of his then condition-but in this continued contest has denied that the policyholder was totally and permanently dis- [303 U.S. 341, 346] abled at any time-before, when, or after the policy was issued. There was also a sharp conflict of evidence on this disputed fact.
When a policy of disability insurance is issued after complete examination by the insurer and full and fair disclosure by both parties, there is no legal reason why the insurer cannot contract to afford full protection against loss resulting from past as well as prospective disability. This veteran's policy did not expressly limit liability to prospective total permanent disability. The provisions of the policy in this regard contain a promise to pay the veteran 'in ... event of the total, permanent disability ... (and) Upon due proof of the total permanent disability while this policy is in force. ...' Original policies issued under the War Risk Act expressly excluded liability for total permanent disability incurred before the policy 'was applied for.' The deliberate omission, in the converted policies, of this previous exclusion, the language and purport of the original act and its amendments, the administrative interpretations and legislative history, all throw a flood of light on the intention to include liability for disabilities existing prior to the issuance of the policies.
To resist payment of this veteran's insurance policy on the ground that he was totally and permanently disabled prior to the issue of the policy is to 'contest' payment within the generally accepted meaning of the word and violates the 'incontestable' provision. The purchaser of a policy contract containing a provision that [303 U.S. 341, 349] the insurer waives its right to contest except for fraud, nonpayment of premiums, and lack of military or naval service is entitled to rely on the plain terms and inducements of the provision which limits the grounds for contest of liability to those specifically reserved. 11 The incontestable provision here means that a claim of a veteran whose death or total permanent disability is established shall not be contested except for fraud, nonpayment of premiums, or on the ground that the insured had not really been a member of the war forces of the nation or because he was included in title 38, U.S.C., 447, 38 U.S.C.A. 447.12 Congress evidently believed these exceptions afforded the government ample protection against impositions or unjust claims and intended to limit the right to contest these policies to the specific grounds reserved in the exceptions. The judgment of the Circuit Court of Appeals is affirmed.
[ Footnote 1 ] 7 Cir., 90 F.2d 715, certiorari granted, 302 U.S. 676 , 58 S.Ct. 142, 82 L.Ed. --.
[ Footnote 2 ] Section 307, World War Veterans' Act 1924, as amended July 3, 1930, c. 849, 24, 46 Stat. 1001, 38 U.S.C.A. 518.
[ Footnote 3 ] Section 400, War Risk Insurance Act of Oct. 6, 1917, c. 105, 40 Stat. 409.
[ Footnote 4 ] See United States v. Clarence P. Arzner, 287 U.S. 470, 472 , 53 S.Ct. 238, 239.
[ Footnote 5 ] See United States v. Domangue, 7 Cir., 79 F.2d 647, 648.
[ Footnote 6 ] Northwestern Life Ins. Co. v. Johnson, 254 U.S. 96, 101 , 102 S., 41 S. Ct. 47, 49.
[ Footnote 7 ] General Interest Ins. Co. v. Ruggles, 12 Wheat. 408; see Hooper v. Robinson, 98 U.S. 528 , 537; Pendergast v. Globe, etc., Ins. Co., 246 N.Y. 396, 159 N.E. 183; Hallock v. Ins. Co., 26 N.J.L. 268, 2 Dutch. 268; see Springfield Fire & Marine Ins. Co. v. Nat. Fire Ins. Co., 8 Cir., 51 F.2d 714, 718, 719, 76 A.L.R. 1287. A valid aleatory contract may be based on an unknown past event. 3 Williston, On Contracts, Rev. Ed., 888.
[ Footnote 8 ] 9 Compt.Gen. 291; Jordan v. United States, 9 Cir., 36 F.2d 43, 73 A. L.R. 312; United States v. Golden, 9 Cir., 34 F.2d 367.
[ Footnote 9 ] H.R. 10381, 71st Cong., 2d Sess., Hearings Senate Committee on Finance, pages 90-91.
[ Footnote 10 ] Senate Report No. 1128, 71st Cong., Sess., on H.R. 13174.
[ Footnote 11 ] See, Northwestern Life Ins. Co. v. Johnson, supra, 254 U.S. 96 , at page 102, 41 S.Ct. 47, 49.
[ Footnote 12 ] 38 U.S.C. 518, and section 447, 38 U.S.C.A. 447, 518. This reference to section 447 excluded from the benefits of this incontestable provision any person who had been discharged or dismissed from the service on the ground that he was 'guilty of mutiny, treason, spying, or any offense involving moral turpitude, or willful and persistent misconduct, of which he was found guilty by a court martial, or that he was an alien, conscientious objector who refused to perform military duty or refused to wear the uniform, or a deserter,' etc.

References: v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v.