Court Opinion

ID: 9446925
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 22:21:41.23401+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:49.762365
License: Public Domain

HUTCHESON, Chief Judge
(dissenting).
I agree fully with the majority that in a suit on a policy of life insurance, in order for the defendant to prevail there must be shown: a false representation, in reference to a material fact, made with knowledge of its falsity, and with intent to deceive. I agree, too, that under the controlling statutes and case law, normally these are questions of fact “to be determined by the court or jury trying the case.”
As the Texas authorities show, however, while this is normally so, this does not mean that every insurance case must be sent to the jury. On the contrary, it is the established law of Texas that in the trial of such a case, as in the trial of other civil cases, uncontroverted issues are not to be submitted to a jury but are proper subjects for peremptory instructions. Tex.Jur. 41B, Sec. 401, pp. 489-494; Clark v. National Life & Accident Insurance Co., 145 Tex. 575, 200 S.W.2d 820; Jefferson Life Ins. Co. v. Kuehler, Tex.Civ.App., 298 S.W.2d 619.
Under that rule, it seems clear to me that, taken in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, it must be concluded that the evidence incontrovertibly, that is as matter of law, establishes the facts required to support the instructed verdict.
I have not overlooked the fact, of which the opinion makes so much, that the insured was recognized as a substandard risk because of his having had a coronary thrombosis in 1948. Indeed, I think this fact cuts the other way. Taken in connection with the undisputed evidence that the misrepresented fact was greatly material to, and greatly increased the substandard risk being assumed, the deliberate falsity and materiality of the representations stand starkly out. In short, it seéms to me that when this case is viewed, piecemeal or as a whole, in the light of the undisputed facts of the case, including the fact admitted in appellant’s brief that the insured “made misrepresentations in his application concerning (1) his failure to report his examination at Massachusetts Memorial Hospital, (2) his failure to report an examination by a physician within the past five years” and that “on these questions defendant would be entitled to an instructed verdict but for the necessity of proving that they concerned matters (1) material to the risk, (2) were made with the intent to deceive, and (3) were relied on.”, it is taxing credulity far beyond its utmost limits to contend or claim that what was said and left unsaid was not done knowingly, deliberately, and with the intent to deceive.
It will serve no useful purpose to set out the evidence. The stark facts which dominate this case and force the conclusion that the district judge was right in directing a verdict, including particularly plaintiff’s skill and proficiency as a doctor in the very field with which this admitted condition of his had to do, are sufficiently stated in the majority opinion. Cases which I think require the view I take are: Rhodes v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., 5 Cir., 172 F.2d 183; Pence v. United States, 316 U.S. 332, 62 S.Ct. 1080, 86 L.Ed. 1510; McDaniel v. United States, 5 Cir., 196 F.2d 291; United States v. Stratton, 5 Cir., 232 F.2d 880.
I respectfully dissent.
Rehearing denied; HUTCHESON, Circuit Judge, dissenting.