Court Opinion

ID: 9817703
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 04:38:53.083329+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:05:19.130555
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice - Cardozo,
in his dissenting opinion, in the Landress Case, supra, says:
“Sunstroke, though it may be a disease! according to the classification of physicians, is none the less an accident in the common speech of men. Ismay, Imrie & Co. v. Williamson (1908) A. C. 437, 439; Lane v. Horn & H. Baking Co., 261 Pa. 329, 104 A. 615, 13 A. L. R. 963. The suddenness of its approach and its catastrophic nature (Matter of Connelly v. Hunt Furniture Co., 240 N. Y. 83, 87, 147 N. E. 366, 39 A. L. R. 867) have made that quality stand out when thought is uninstructed in the mysteries of science. Lower v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. (1933) 111 N. J. Law, 426, 168 A. 592, 593, collating the decisions. Violent it is for the same reason, and external because the train of consequences is set in motion by the rays of the sun beating down upon the body, a cause operating from without.”
And:
“The attempted distinction between accidental results and accidental means will plunge this branch of the law into a Ser-bonian Bog. ‘Probably it is true to say that in the strictest sense and dealing with the region of physical nature there is no such thing as an Occident.’ Halsbury L. C. in Brintons v. Turvey, L. R. (1905) A. C. 230, 233. C. F. Lewis v. Ocean Accident & Guar. Corp., 224 N. Y. 18, 120 N. E. 56, 7 A. L. R. 1129; Innes v. Kynoch (1919) A. C. 765, 775. Cn the other hand, the average man is convinced that there 'is, and so certainly is the man who takes out a policy of accident insurance. It is his reading of the policy that is to be accepted as our guide, with the help of the established rule that ambiguities and uncertainties are to be resolved against the company. Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. Hurni Packing Co., 263 U. S. 167, 174, 44 S. Ct. 90, 68 L. Ed. 235, 31 A. L. R. 102; Stipcich v. Met. Life Ins. Co., 277 U. S. 311, 322, 48 S. Ct. 512, 72 L. Ed. 895. The proposed distinction will not survive the application of that test.”
If the question involved were a federal one, we would, of course, be bound to follow the Landress Case. But we believe that the better reasoning is with the dissenting opinion and the cases cited therein, and this court is already committed to the rule, as said therein, “if there was no accident in the means, there was none in the result.”
The vast number of sunstroke cases resulting in death leads to the conclusion that such result (death) is not unusual or un*594expected. It is the sunstroke itself that is usually regarded as unusual and unexpected. While it is by no .means certain that death will result from a sunstroke, it so often, does that it is not uncommon, unusual, or unexpected.
In Elsey v. Fidelity & Cas. Co., 187 Ind. 447, 120 N. E. 42, L. R. A. 1918F, 646, it is said:
“The purpose of accident insurance is to protect the insured against accidents that occur while he is going about his business in the usual way, without any thought of being injured or killed, and when there is no' probability, in the ordinary course of events, that he will suffer injury or death. The reason men secure accident insurance is to protect them from the unforeseen, unusual, and unexpected injury that might happen to them while pursuing the usual and ordinary routine of their daily vocation, or the doing of the things that men do in the common everyday affairs of life. We are of opinion that the better reasoning points out, and the weight of authority holds the true test to be, that if in the act which precedes the injury, though an intentional act, something unusual, unforeseen and unexpected occurs, which produces the injury, it 'is accidental; but if, in the act' which precedes the injury, something usual, foreseen and expected occurs, which produces the injury, it is not accidentally effected.”
In Farmer v. Railway Mail Ass’n (Mo.) 57 S. W. (2d) 744, it is said:
“Moreover, as already said,' insurance policies are prepared for public consumption, and their terms must be understood according to the view of the popular mind, so that insurers may not put upon their policies one construction for the purpose of selling them, and another for the purpose of defeating liability when disaster befalls. There is no question that sunstroke, in the popular mind, is regarded as an injury resulting from accidental means, just as a lightning stroke is so regarded. The insurance companies know this when they sell their policies and collect the premiums thereon. If they desire to exclude sunstroke from the coverage of their policies, this can easily be done in express terms.”
In Continental Cas. Co. v. Bruden (Ark.) 11 S. W. (2d) 493, 61 A. L. R. 1192, it is held:
“Death as a result of heat prostration or sunstroke is a risk covered by an accident policy insuring against loss of life resulting from a personal bodily injury which is effected solely and independently of all other causes by the happening of an external, violent and purely accidental event.”
In Lower v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. (N. J.) 168 Atl. 592, many cases are cited as bearing upon the subject. Among them is Continental Cas. Co. v. Clark, 70 Okla. 187, 173 P. 453, quoted from above. The cases cited in the Lower Case show that practically all of the decisions from state courts of last resort hold that death from sunstroke is one resulting from external, violent, and accidental means.
Without any attempt to classify the cases cited, the court in the Lower Case says: “That such death (from sunstroke) was the result * * * of bodily injuries sustained through external; violent, and accidental means.”
We are not inclined to depart from the holding of this court in the Clark Case, supra, but do hold sunstroke is an accident, that if death results therefrom, both the means and the result are accidental. Prudential Ins. Co. of America v. Tidwell, 163 Okla. 39, 21 P. (2d) 28.
Defendant contends that because it made demand for an autopsy and its demand was denied, the cause should be reversed. Under the facts shown we hold the contention without merit.
Insured died on July 27th. The body was sent to Mississippi for burial and buried on July 30th. Notice of the death was mailed to defendant on July 28th, but was not received by it until August 2d. Nothing was said about an autopsy until September 10th, after plaintiff had engaged an attorney, when demand was first made for an autopsy and post_ mortem. Coupled with this demand was a further request for permis^ sion for the representatives of the company to remove any' specimen or specimens for chemical, ■ microscopic, pathological, laboratory, or other examinations required. Grant or refusal of both requests were coupled together. The request was refused by plaintiff’s attorney as net being in accord with the terms of the policy, and for the further reason that the request was not made within a reasonable time. Attention was called to the fact that the policy simply provided the right and opportunity to make an autopsy where not forbidden by law. Attention was! called to a decision of the Supreme Court of the state of Mississippi wherein it was said to be held that a request for an autopsy after the body had been buried was against public policy and void.
Defendant replied in effect demanding that plaintiff sign the request as sent, either* granting or refusing same; in effect, refus*595ing to modify its request so as to limit it to the terms of the policy.
Furthermore, no claim was then madei nor was any showing made whatever at the trial that an autopsy would have or might have shown that insured died of or from any cause other than that claimed by plaintiff, viz., sunstroke. There was, therefore, no showing whatever that defendant was prejudiced by the refusal of the request for an autopsy. In fact, plaintiff never did refuse an autopsy within the terms of the policy, because no request limited to such terms was ever made. No explanation whatever was made or attempted to be made for the delay of some five or six weeks in requesting an autopsy.
There being no substantial error, the judgment is affirmed.
McNEILL, O. J„ OSBORN, V. O. X, and BAYLESS, PHELPS, CORN, and GIBSON, JX, concur. BUSBY, X, dissents. WELCH, X, absent.