Court Opinion

ID: 9754252
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 19:52:02.414895+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:51.090214
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Me. Justice Musmanno:
I would reverse the lower court and grant a new trial. Lex neminem cogit ad vana seu inutilia peragenda.
When the plaintiff in this case, the Jeannette Glass Company, conducted its investigation and concluded that it, (and, therefore, also the Indemnity Insurance Company of North America,) was not involved in any way by the accident on November 25, 1945, it would have done an utterly vain and useless thing to notify the insurance company thereof. The accident on its premises which concerned two different parties entirely, namely, Sylvester Stucker and the Eichleay Engineering Company, had no more business being reported to the insurance company than a fist fight between two strangers on the Jeannette Glass Company premises.
The principle involved here is excellently summarized in 15 Corpus Juris Secundum, sec. 14, page 629, as follows: “. . . the law will not require the doing of a useless or unreasonable act; technicalities are not favorites of the law, except where they can be used as instruments to prevent injustice; a party seeking to avajl himself of a technicality not affecting a substan*416tial right must himself be held to a prompt, consistent, and exact assertion of such technical right.” (15 C.J.S., sec. 14, p. 629)
Every legal wrong encompasses in some form or another a moral wrong, but there was nothing ethically blameworthy in the decision of the Jeannette Glass Company not to inform the insurance company of the accident which was extraneous to the interests of either. The fact that the plaintiff conducted an investigation demonstrated its bona fides. It was not attempting to conceal anything or to evade responsibility. It sought, and believed it had apprehended, the truth. It carried liability insurance, so that it cannot be charged or even suspected that it was attempting to circumvent any obligation, financial or otherwise. It refrained from contacting the insurance company because, in its honest opinion, it was perfectly superfluous to do so.
In assumpsit actions we usually find the defendant proceeding on the theory that had the plaintiff done what the defendant expected of him, the defendant would either not have suffered a loss or he would have gained an advantage now denied him. But in the case at bar the defendant lost nothing because of the failure of the plaintiff to notify it of the accident on or about the day it occurred, nor could it have gained anything by. possession of that knowledge on or about November 25, 1945. A decision in favor of the insurance company here is a decision based on what the lay world usually denominates, and decries, as a “technicality”.
■ However, it is to be observed that in insisting on a strict and- meticulous adherence to the letter of the policy, the insurance company is wielding a sword which cuts two ways. Even if we take the policy word for word, as the defendant demands, we will find that the plaintiff did meet the- requirements of the contract. *417The crucial clause reads: “Upon the occurrence of an accident, written notice shall be given by or on behalf of the insured to the company or any of its authorized agents as soon as practicable after notice thereof has been received by its executive officers at the insured’s headquarters.” It will be noted that the clause does not say that notice shall be given immediately or as soon as possible. It says as soon as practicable. Practicable, of course, means feasible. It means the accomplishing of something which is reasonable to accomplish, and it excludes the doing of what is unreasonable or unnecessary. If I order the baker to deliver a loaf of bread when practicable I certainly do not expect him to deliver it before it is baked. “The adjective ‘practicable’ imports difference according to circumstances. Assuming that the law requires action at the earliest practicable moment, it would still be a question of fact, at least generally, when that moment arrived, even if there was no dispute as to the circumstances. Some may point one way and some the other. No case is cited where it was held to be a matter of law for the court.” (Norton v. Gleason, 18 A. 45, 47; 61 Vt. 474.)
This principle was well stated also in an Indiana case: “A thing practicable must necessarily be possible, but a thing may be possible that is not practicable. . . . The English Law Dictionary defines the word ‘as possible of reasonable performance.’ The phrase ‘if the court shall find it practicable’ implies a legal discretion, the exercise of judgment based upon the whole evidence of all the facts that affect the question of practicability within the usual and ordinary sense of the word. The question, therefore, depends upon the circumstances of each particular case.” (Pgh. C. C. & St. L. Ry. Co. v. Indianapolis C. & S. Traction Co., 81 N. E. 487, 488, 169 Ind. 634.)
Further pursuing the meticulous literalness of the clause in question, it is to be observed that although the *418evidence indicates that one of the executive officers of the Jeannette Glass Company learned of the accident on the day it occurred, the policy says that the insurance company does not need to be notified until notice of the accident has been received by the executive officers of the insured firm, that is, all of them. And that notice must be received at the insured’s headquarters. The executive officers did not receive notice of the accident at their headquarters until August 10, 1946, and that is when they notified the defendant insurance company.
But this is merely fencing with shadows and juggling with language. As much as the lay world may assume that law consists of a game in the abracadabra of words, and as much as that assumption may have been true in Shakespearean days, it is reassuring to note that the law of today aims at realities and the achievement of a justice which will appeal to the reason of the most unlettered man on the street. Law is simply justice in action.
Where there is a dispute over words and not intent, phrases and not purpose, the insured, within the limits of reasonableness, must be favored. Mr. Justice Stern expressed it succinctly in the case of Snader v. London & Lancashire Indemnity Co., 360 Pa. 548, 551, 62 A. 2d 835, when he said: “It must, of course, be remembered that where the terms of a policy are susceptible of different interpretations the construction most favorable to the insured should be the one adopted . . . The reason for this is that the language of the policy is prepared by the insurer, presumably with the purpose in mind of protecting itself against future claims in regard to which it does not desire to accept liability.”
The Jeannette Glass Company sought no advantage by failing to communicate with the insurance company on November 25, 1945. The insurance company lost no *419advantage in its ignorance of the accident at that time. The only interest the insurance company could have had in receiving notification of an accident was to investigate and prepare against a possible law suit. The -mere notification of itself added nothing to its coffers, nor did the absence of notice take a penny out of its treasury when the possibility of a claim against it was excluded.
The Indemnity Insurance Company of North America could not be concerned about the accident of November 25, 1945 until it became a potential lawsuit; and that did not occur until August 10, 1946, when of course the provisions of the policy were complied with.
The case of Unverzagt v. Prestera, 339 Pa. 141, 13 A. 2d 46, on which the appellee principally relies, points out that what constitutes compliance with any certain condition in an insurance policy “varies with the circumstances of each case.” It also states that when “there are no extenuating circumstances for a jury’s consideration, the question is one for the court.” But there were extenuating circumstances in this case. And extenuation is always a question of fact because it involves not only brute circumstances, physical realities and personal conduct but also the inferences which flow from that interplay of the human elements.
The expression common sense is one much abused in everyday parlance, but it is still the mountain peak of reason which projects above the ever-rising flood of legal formulae, complicated terminology, dicta, syllabi, clauses and phrases pouring from the reservoirs of formal law. And common sense, as I view it, says that the insurance company received adequate and sufficiently expeditious notice for it to protect its interests and prepare to meet its obligations. The record is devoid of one syllable showing that it suffered the slightest handicap by receiving the notice on August *42010,1946, instead of November 25, 1945. When it evaded the arena of the law suit brought against the Jeannette Glass Company it did so wilfully and not because it was not armed for the contest.
To allow an indemnity insurance company to escape responsibility for the very thing it bound itself to anticipate is to lay down a precedent of perilous potentialities. Carrying it into its ultimate ramifications it could endanger faith in what is undoubtedly one of the strongest pillars in the temple of the American way of life, namely, the insurance policy.
Next to the daily rising of the sun, nothing is so warming and comforting to the American family as the realization of every member thereof that by the periodical payment of stated sums from their hard-earned wages they have engaged the services of a powerful and unfailing friend who will protect them against the rain of sickness, the storm of accident, debility and theft, and the hundreds of other mishaps and contingencies which can darken and ensadden the life of any happy home.
Insurance policies contain much fine print. They are to be read with human understanding and not through the glasses of super-technical interpretation.
I would reverse the lower Court and grant a new trial.