Title: United Insurance Company of America v. Ray
Citation: 125 So. 2d 704
Docket Number: N/A
State: Alabama
Issuer: Alabama Supreme Court
Date: December 1, 1960

125 So. 2d 704 (1960)
UNITED INSURANCE COMPANY OF AMERICA
v.
Morlan M. RAY.
2 Div. 415.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
December 1, 1960.
Rehearing Denied January 12, 1961.
*705 Dominick &amp; Roberts, Tuscaloosa, and G. E. Sledge, Greensboro, for appellant.
LeMaistre, Clement &amp; Gewin, Walter P. Gewin and Perry Hubbard, Tuscaloosa, for appellee.
MERRILL, Justice.
Appellee Ray sued appellant for total disability benefits for an alleged accidental injury under a policy of insurance. The cause was tried without a jury and the court rendered judgment in favor of appellee for $1,800 as disability benefits of $300 per month for a period of six months. Appellant's motion for a new trial was overruled.
Appellant's pleadings were in short by consent, the general issue, no accidental injury, plaintiff not totally disabled, misrepresentations made by plaintiff in application for the policy which materially affected the loss, misrepresentations in the application *706 with intent to deceive and misrepresentations in the application for the policy sued on.
The policy insured appellee against accidental injury in words as follows:
The applicable provision of the policy reads:
The monthly benefit payment for such total disability was $300.
The policy is dated January 15, 1957, and on the following April 20th, appellee went fishing with a friend and found a tree limb across his boat. He first tried to pull the limb away while standing on the tree, which had fallen near the boat. He tried to break the limb off the tree but was unable to do so. He then jumped back on the bank, slid down the bank six or eight feet to get in the boat in order to move the limb. While standing in the boat with his feet about twelve inches lower than the limb, he reached over for the limb and while bent over, something snapped in his back. It was discovered he had suffered a crushed vertebra, caused by a fracture of the fifth lumbar vertebra.
Appellee is a small man, five feet six and one-half inches in height. He weighed one hundred forty-five pounds and his waist measured thirty-two inches at the time of the injury.
Appellant's first assignment of error is concerned with the overruling of the motion for a new trial, two grounds of which raise the question of whether there was an accidental bodily injury within the terms of the policy. Appellant argues that there was no accident involved in anything insured did, but that his trouble arose from a diseased vertebra.
Medical testimony introduced by appellant supports his contention, but medical testimony of appellee's doctors conflicts with this contention.
It is an accidental injury where an unexpected result arises from an intended or voluntary act. In Emergency Aid Ins. Co. v. Dobbs, 263 Ala. 594, 83 So. 2d 335, 338, we said:
Here the pulling at the limb, jumping from tree to bank, sliding down the bank and reaching over to remove the limb were, for the most part, voluntary acts, and the fracture of the vertebra was an unexpected result.
Assuming without conceding that the vertebra was diseased, we think the facts in the instant case made a question for the trier of facts to determine. In First National Bank of Birmingham v. Equitable Life Assur. Society, 225 Ala. 586, 144 So. 451, 452, it was said:
Thus, the injury being accidental, it may have caused the diseased vertebra to collapse before it ordinarily would, but the result would still be within the provisions of the policy.
Appellant next argues that there was no total disability. This argument is based upon evidence that appellee later resumed his work as a builder or building contractor.
In Wilkey v. Aetna Life Ins. Co., 269 Ala. 308, 112 So. 2d 458, 460, we quoted from Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Alston, 248 Ala. 671, 29 So. 2d 233, as follows:
There was ample evidence that the insured could not substantially perform the material duties for which he is qualified by experience and training. One of his doctors testified that he was totally disabled. Furthermore, there is no evidence that appellee did any work in his occupation during the six months period in which it is claimed that the total disability occurred.
Finally, on this point, appellee was permitted to demonstrate to the court how he walked since the accident. This evidence was before the trier of fact, but, of course, is not before us.
Where it is apparent from the record that the trial court had before it evidence omitted from the record, it will be conclusively presumed that such evidence would sustain the trial court's findings. Local No. 157, etc. v. Local No. 4202, 266 Ala. 354, 96 So. 2d 297; Williams v. Clark, 263 Ala. 228, 82 So. 2d 295. This rule is applicable here only to this particular question, not to the others raised by different assignments of error.
The remaining assignments of error are concerned with the alleged material misrepresentations in the application. Question 11. of the application and the answer thereto are as follows:
The alleged misrepresentation is that appellee omitted from the application that Dr. Nelson Long of Selma had treated him for basal cell carcinoma (skin cancer), in 1956. Dr. Long testified that it was his custom to tell a person the nature of a disease and it was his best judgment that he told appellee the nature of his trouble, but it was also possible that he stated to appellee that he had "basal cell carcinoma" without explaining the meaning of that term.
Appellee testified that he did not know the meaning of the term, that the doctor never told him he had cancer and that *708 the doctor had said he was cured. Appellee contends there was no evidence that there was an actual intent to deceive, and furthermore, that there was no misrepresentation which increased the risk of loss when the appellee had been pronounced cured of the skin cancer.
We think appellant's argument is answered in American Nat. Ins. Co. v. Walstrom, 226 Ala. 402, 147 So. 595, 596, a much stronger case for appellant than the instant case, where this court said:
We have already outlined evidence which tended to show that the omission of the information regarding the skin cancer treatment was not a fraudulent misrepresentation.
Neither can it be held that the omission of the skin cancer treatment increased the risk of loss. In Padgett v. Sovereign Camp, W. O. W., 218 Ala. 255, 118 So. 456, 458, it was said:
Here, the injury to appellee's back had no connection with the skin cancer and the latter *709 had been pronounced cured by Dr. Long before the back injury occurred.
Appellant's final contention is that the court erred in sustaining the objection of the appellee to the following question propounded by appellant to Dr. Long: "Q. Have you known the disease for which you treated Mr. Ray to result in a fatality?" Appellant insists that the question went to the materiality of the misrepresentations made by appellee in his application for insurance and that the court should have required an answer.
The court's action was not error for two reasons. First, the doctor had testified that basal cell carcinoma is considered curable if treated at an early stage, that appellee was treated early and that he was doing well when discharged.
The other reason is that the witness had already testified that he had seen any type of skin cancer cause death and that "any skin cancer is a menace to health if it isn't treated." At best, this testimony would only have been cumulative. Even if it had been error to sustain the objection, it was harmless error under the rule that an error in excluding evidence as to a certain fact is harmless where the fact is established by other evidence. Stewart v. Weaver, 264 Ala. 286, 87 So. 2d 548; Bertolla v. Kaiser, 267 Ala. 435, 103 So. 2d 736; Cole v. Louisville &amp; Nashville R. Co., 267 Ala. 196, 100 So. 2d 684.
As already noted in this opinion, there was a decided conflict in the testimony, and the trial court resolved that conflict in favor of appellee. Applying the well-known presumption, we will not disturb the findings of the trial court since they are not plainly wrong. Murphree v. Campbell, 266 Ala. 501, 97 So. 2d 892.
Affirmed.
LIVINGSTON, C. J., and LAWSON and STAKELY, JJ., concur.