Court Opinion

ID: 9848642
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:23:55.01982+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:32.773353
License: Public Domain

TUCKETT, Justice
(dissenting):
I respectfully dissent. This is an action upon an insurance policy which policy defines the word “injury” in the following terms:
“Injury” wherever used in this certificate means bodily injury occurring while the Group Policy is in force as to the Insured Person or Insured Dependent whose injury is the basis of claim and causing the loss directly and independently of all other causes and effected solely through an accidental bodily injury to the Insured Person or Insured Dependent.
It should be noted that the policy we are here dealing with is unique in that it does not include the language usually found in policies insuring against injuries resulting from accident or accidental means. Most policies of this type define accident or accidental injury in language such as: bodily injury effected solely through external, violent and accidental means; bodily injuries effected directly and independently of all other causes through external, violent and accidental means. Then too, the policy does not contain language found in most policies of this type which exclude the loss which is contributed to or which results in whole or in part from bodily sickness or disease. As the record shows, Judge Leonard Elton was under considerable stress for several months prior to his death from a cerebral occlusion which occurred on May 13, 1970. The stress was occasioned by the judge’s undertaking the responsibilities of presiding judge of the Third Judicial District and in the trial of several difficult cases which had attracted wide public interest and publicity. One of the physicians who testified on behalf of the plaintiff voiced the opinion that there was a reasonable medical certainty that the activities of the decedent during the last six weeks of his life and the stress he was under during that period aggravated his condition of arteriosclerosis which resulted in the cerebral occlusion. This occurrence was referred to in the medical testimony as a cerebral vascular accident.
*232The defendant adduced expert testimony which tended to show that Leonard Elton suffered from a chronic disease which tended to progress and which eventually affected the brain and resulted in death. The case was submitted to the jury and the jury was correctly instructed that the plaintiff was entitled to recover if the death of the insured resulted from accidental injuries and that death would not have occurred at that time except for those injuries. The court also instructed the jury that if a preponderance of the evidence showed that Leonard Elton was suffering from a cardiovascular disease and that at the time of his death he was under unusual mental stress and strain caused by an unusual amount of work, or work causing unusual mental stress and strain, and that the stress and strain aggravated the' disease and proximately caused a cerebral thrombosis which proximately caused his death, then the plaintiff was entitled to recover. The court also instructed the jury that if the evidence showed that Leonard Elton prior to his death was suffering from arteriosclerosis or a heart condition, and that his death was brought about by the natural progression of that disease or condition, then the plaintiff was not entitled to recover even though the jury should find that the stress that he was under at the time of his death may have contributed to some extent to his death at that particular time.
I am of the view that there was a fact question in this case which the jury was entitled to consider and to decide. I would affirm the verdict of the jury and the judgment of the court upon the verdict.