Court Opinion

ID: 9638624
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 15:49:04.434864+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:23:03.915428
License: Public Domain

MONTEMURO, Judge,
dissenting:
Although I find that the majority has properly stated the law with regard to an insurer’s right to avoid a policy of life insurance issued on the basis of fraudulent information, I disagree with the majority’s application of those principles. I therefore dissent.
I agree with the majority’s determination that the information provided by Pauline Grimes in her insurance application was false, and that the subject matter was material to the risk assumed by the insurance company. I believe, *254however, that as a matter of law, we may infer that the statements were made in bad faith.
The majority aptly notes that
where it is established by uncontradicted documentary evidence that the insured has consulted physicians so frequently, or undergone medical or surgical treatment so recently, or of such a serious nature, that a person of ordinary intelligence could not have forgotten these incidents in answering a direct and pointed question in an application for insurance, bad faith may be inferred as a matter of law if the insured denies in his answer that any physician has been consulted, or any medical or surgical treatment has been received during the period of inquiry.
Piccinini v. Teachers Protective Mutual Life Insurance Co., 316 Pa.Super. 519, 530, 463 A.2d 1017, 1024 (1983).
My review of the deposition testimony of Dr. James E. Savory, Ms. Grimes’ treating physician from 1982 through the time of her death in March, 1987, convinces me that she acted in bad faith in responding to the questions posed by the insurance application.1 Dr. Savory testified from his medical records that Pauline Grimes suffered from hypertension and that medication had been prescribed for this condition throughout the five year period that Dr. Savory treated her. R.R. at 66a, 80a, 82a, 88a, 90a. In fact, when Pauline Grimes first visited Dr. Savory in February of 1982, she had already been taking blood pressure medication which had been prescribed by another physician. At the *255time of the February, 1982 visit, Dr. Savory informed Pauline of her blood pressure problem, prescribed medicine to lower the pressure, and recommended that she diet. In addition, on February 2, 1982, within the five years preceding the March, 1986 date on which Pauline Grimes had applied for life insurance, Pauline underwent an electrocardiogram, chest x-ray, liver x-ray, urinalysis, and blood tests. R.R. at 68, 69.
Dr. Savory next saw Pauline three months later, in May of 1982. Her blood pressure was down but her weight had not changed. Dr. Savory’s notes indicated that Pauline had communicated to him that she was working hard on her diet. Four months later, in September, 1982, Pauline again visited Dr. Savory. Her blood pressure had lowered and she had lost 10 pounds on the diet. Dr. Savory continued her on the combined medication/diet program to lower her blood pressure.
Pauline Grimes again visited Dr. Savory in February of 1983, May of 1983, July of 1983, January of 1984, April of 1984, November of 1984, and March of 1985. The purpose of each of these visits was to check Pauline’s blood pressure and weight. Throughout this entire period she continued on the prescribed regimen of medication and diet to reduce her high blood pressure.
Dr. Savory next saw Pauline over one year later, in June of 1986, when she was hospitalized. At the time of her admission, Pauline indicated that she was still taking the medicine for high blood pressure. R.R. at 82, 88.
Contrary to the majority’s reading of the record, the testimony of Dr. Savory indicates unequivocally that Pauline’s visits to him were made for the continued treatment and monitoring of her hypertension.
In March, 1986, one year after her last visit to Dr. Savory, Pauline Grimes answered “no” to the following questions in her insurance application:
*25617. Has any person named in la or 10, within the last 12 months:
******
b. ... taken medication for high blood pressure. ******
26. Is any person to be covered now being treated or taking medicine for any condition or disease?
******
28. Other than as shown above, in the past 5 years has any person to be covered ...
******
b. had electrocardiograms, x-rays for diagnosis or treatment, or blood, urine, or other medical tests? ******
29. Does any person to be covered now have a known sign of any physical disorder, disease or defect not shown above?
R.R. 23a-24a. Pauline responded “yes” to the following question:
28. ... in the past 5 years has any person to be covered: a. consulted or been attended or examined by any doctor or other practitioner?
R.R. at 24. Although Pauline named Dr. Savory as her treating physician in response to the question which requested the “full details” of the doctor visits, she merely explained the visits as “annual checkup” “ok.” I believe that Pauline’s omission of her lengthy and intensive treatment for her hypertension constituted bad faith, as the “uncontradicted documentary evidence” shows that Pauline Grimes had “consulted physicians so frequently [and] undergone medical ... treatment so recently ... that a person of ordinary intelligence could not have forgotten these incidents in answering a direct and pointed question in an application for insurance.” Piccinini, supra at 530, 463 A.2d at 1024. In further support of my position, I note that Pauline recalled and accurately reported some of her medi*257cal history in the insurance application, such as the fact that her gall bladder was removed when she was seventeen years old.2 Given the 10 visits Pauline made to Dr. Savory during the three year period between 1982 and 1985 for treatment of her high blood pressure, and the fact that she did remember her last checkup with Dr. Savory, I am hard pressed to believe that she did not know her responses on the application were false. I find that the holdings in Freedman v. Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York, 342 Pa. 404, 409, 21 A.2d 81 (1941) and Piccinini, supra, cited by the majority, are controlling.
The majority focuses on whether Dr. Savory’s testimony shows that Pauline fully appreciated the seriousness of her condition. According to my reading of the relevant case-law, this is not the proper inquiry in determining bad faith on the part of the insured. Regardless of whether Pauline comprehended the seriousness of hypertension, she knew that she had the illness, and that she was on medication to alleviate the problem. The insurance application did not inquire only as to serious illnesses, but instead requested the “full details” of any consultations with doctors. Thus, the question is not whether Pauline realized how ill she was; the question is whether at the time she completed her application, she knew she had been treated for the hypertension. I find that Pauline’s failure to report her treatment for high blood pressure constituted bad faith as a matter of law.
For the foregoing reasons, I would affirm the judgment of the trial court.

. The majority concludes that summary judgment was inappropriate in this case because the summary judgment was granted on the basis of the deposition testimony of Dr. Savory. While it is true that summary judgment will generally not be granted on the basis of oral testimony offered on behalf of the moving party, the record in this case reveals that Dr. Savory's testimony was simply a summarization of his medical records; neither party disputes the accuracy of the records evidencing Pauline’s numerous visits to Dr. Savory. In Piccinini, supra, this Court held that despite the trial court’s finding that the testimony of the insured’s treating physician was not credible, ”[w]e are simply unable to believe that he was not aware that one of the conditions from which he was suffering and for which he sought treatment was arthritis, a common condition, especially when he had received treatment for that condition for so prolonged a period of years." 316 Pa.Super. at 531, 463 A.2d at 1025.

. I contrast Pauline’s ability to remember the operation performed 25 years earlier with her failure to report her extensive treatment for high blood pressure, not with her failure to report the diagnostic testing.