Court Opinion

ID: 9602732
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 01:59:08.976744+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:05.955340
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
Counsel for the defendant in their motion for a rehearing lay great stress upon the rule that, where admissions have been made in pleadings which are stricken subsequently, they can not be used as solemn admissions in judicio so as to estop the pleader’s denial or explanation of such admissions. No such effect was given the defendant's admission of payment of the premium in this case. The admission of payment in the original answer, which was later stricken, was introduced in evidence by the plaintiff and was entitled to be considered along with the various other pros and cons on the question of payment of the premium. No other effect was given or intended to be given by this court to such admission.
As we have already pointed out in the original opinion in this case, it is the habitual or customary use of intoxicants which would materially increase the risk to the insurer, so that a *629misrepresentation by an applicant as to such use would render the contract of insurance voidable at the option of the insurer. The customary and habitual use of intoxicants might well be considered by the insurer to have reached the proportions of a malady, but not so where there had been an occasional or exceptional use of intoxicants. The only direct evidence of the insured’s having ever used intoxicants was that of his drunkenness on the day of his death, and the facts of this case are totally unlike that line of cases exemplified by Stipcich v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., 277 U. S. 311 (48 Sup. Ct. 512), where, between the time of the application and the time of the policy, the applicant discovered himself to be afflicted with a serious malady, duodenal ulcer, and unlike those cases in which it is provided that the applicant shall be in good health at the time of the delivery of the policy and the payment of the premium. McKenzie v. Northwestern Mutual Life Ins. Co., 26 Ga. App. 225 (105 S. E. 720).
We have held in the original opinion that there was evidence from which the jury was authorized to find that the first premium was actually paid; and this being so, the following cases relied upon by counsel for the defendant are entirely beside the point: Scurry v. Cotton States Life Ins. Co., 51 Ga. 625; Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Thompson, 20 Ga. App. 706 (93 S. E. 299); Reese v. Fidelity Mutual Life Association, 111 Ga. 482 (36 S. E. 637); Clark v. Mutual Life Ins. Co., 129 Ga. 571 (59 S. E. 283); Reliance Life Ins. Co. v. Hightower, 23 Ga. App. 573 (99 S. E. 140); Penn Mutual Life Ins. Co. v. Blount, 37 Ga. App. 756 (142 S. E. 183); Penn Mutual Life Ins. Co. v. Blount, 165 Ga. 193 (140 S. E. 496). In none of those cases was such a finding authorized.

Rehearing denied.

Gardner, P.J., and Townsend, J., concur.