Court Opinion

ID: 9636892
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 14:48:04.927589+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:50.958366
License: Public Domain

DIETRICH, Circuit Judge
(concurring). Assuming, in harmony with the contention of defendant in error, but not deciding, the applicability of the statutory presumption respecting the service connection of sleeping sickness, I am unable to perceive its probative efficacy in a ease like this. The question being, did plaintiff become “totally and permanently disabled” prior to August 1,1919, our concern is with the effects rather than with the germinal origin of any disease with which he may have been afflicted. It would therefore seem to be immaterial that he acquired the germ during the term of the insurance where, as here,-it conclusively appears that if so acquired it did not operate seriously to impair his physical or mental capacity until three years after the insurance expired. But if we assume that the instruction upon the point might properly have been withheld, I am unable to see how the giving of it could have been prejudicial. The court clearly advised the jury that only in case they were convinced by the evidence of plaintiff’s total and permanent disability during the insurance term would they be warranted in finding for him; and this view was emphasized by repetition. Attention was thus effectively drawn to the controlling issue of plaintiff’s actual physical condition at the time the insurance terminated, and upon that issue I agree that under the accepted definitions of “total” and “permanent” disability as set forth in the instructions, the ease was one for the jury.”