Court Opinion

ID: 9862961
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 02:34:41.184517+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:45:19.590266
License: Public Domain

BATEMAN, Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. To my mind, it seems fairly clear that the parties intended that upon the death of the member the death benefit should become payable, undiminished by the retirement benefits which had been paid to the member prior to his death, and that the references in subpara-graph B, of Section 1, Article IX, to the death benefit provided in subparagraph A merely lay down a measure by which to determine the total amount of retirement benefits payable to the member and the designated beneficiary.
This view seems reasonable to me in the light of the fact that, although subpara-graph A makes specific reference to two other portions of the contract (one to Section 2 of Article IX and the other to Section 1 of Article XIII), it makes no reference to subparagraph B and nothing is said to indicate that the unequivocal promise to pay a certain death benefit shall be subject to any reduction because of subparagraph B.
If the view that the obligation to pay the death benefit is not subject to such erosion be mistaken, then in any event it seems to me that the intent that the death benefit shall be so diminished is not so certain as to make it wholly unreasonable to say that there was no such intent. If that be true, it must then be said that there is to that extent a want of clarity amounting to ambiguity, making applicable the rules stated in Continental Cas. Co. v. Warren, 152 Tex. 164, 254 S.W.2d 762, 763, 767 (1953), that a fact issue has been raised as to what was intended, and that if the intent of the policy to exclude a certain liability is not so certain as to make it wholly unreasonable to say that such liability was included, the court should hold that liability of the insurer has been established.
It seems to me also that Providence Washington Ins. Co. v. Proffitt, 150 Tex. 207, 239 S.W.2d 379, 381 (1951), supports my view that if appellee had intended the language used in subparagraph B to be used also to restrict its liability under subparagraph A, such intent could and should have been evidenced by appropriate phrases contained in subparagraph A. After reciting the rule that “exceptions and words of limitation will be strictly construed against the insurer,” the court said: “We will certainly not write a limitation of liability into a policy where none exists.”
I do not think we should do so in this case either. I think the judgment should be reversed and rendered, except for the matter of the attorney’s fee, which should be remanded for determination by the trial court.