Court Opinion

ID: 9446818
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 22:19:00.520889+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:47.558741
License: Public Domain

HUTCHESON, Chief Judge
(dissenting).
While I think the decision is a close one, I concur in the view of the majority that Alabama law, which is controlling here, requires the conclusion that the facts made out a case for the jury upon the question whether under the applicable Alabama statute, Long’s misrepresentations of fact were “made with actual intent to deceive”. This is so because the answer to the question permitted, in deed required not an objective but a subjective determination, not whether certain facts existed, but the state of mind of the insured with regard to the objective facts. Cf. Equitable Life Assurance Society of United States v. Alvarez, 5 Cir., 141 F.2d 551, a Texas case; Madden v. Metropolitan Life, 5 Cir., 138 F.2d 708, 151 A.L.R. 984, a Florida case.
I cannot, however, concur in the view that whether “the matter misrepresented increased the risk of loss”, Ala.Code, Title 28, Sec. 6 (1940) (Mutual Life Ins. Co. of New York v. Allen, 174 Ala. 511, 56 So. 568) also presented a question of fact for the jury’s decision. Unlike the answer to the first question, the answer to this one requires an objective answer, that is a determination of what the facts *164are. It does not require, indeed it does not permit a search of insured’s mind to obtain a subjective answer, that is the insured’s opinion as to whether the admitted facts increased the risk of loss. This means that I cannot agree with the conclusion of the majority that until the Alabama courts declare “that every coronary occlusion increases the risk ox loss to the insurance company as a matter of law,” the question is inherently one of medical fact. This is not to say that the question whether the matter misrepresented increased the risk of loss is not normally one of objective fact. It is to say, though, that in a case of this kind it is our duty to determine for ourselves whether, as matter of law, the testimony did or did not make out a case for a jury verdict, that is whether reasonable minds could or could not reach the conclusion the jury did, and that our duty to do this is not at all affected by the fact that the Alabama courts, where the scintilla rule applies, have not undertaken to make a generalized holding 9 “that every coronary occlusion increases the risk of loss to the insurance company as a matter of law”.
Of the opinion that the evidence on this issue admits of only one reasonable conclusion, that the misrepresented facts did increase the risk of loss, I think the judgment- should be reversed and the cause remanded with directions to enter a judgment for defendant. I, therefore, respectfully dissent.