Court Opinion

ID: 9585853
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:04:28.472921+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:24:15.817790
License: Public Domain

Stukes, Justice
(concurring).
I concur in the foregoing affirming opinion because I agree that the evidence is not susceptible of reasonable inference of fraudulent cancellation of the policy, accompanied by a fraudulent act. The trial court therefore properly excluded the issue of punitive damages from the consideration of the jury. Furthermore, our former decisions limit the recovery of actual damages for wrongful cancellation of a life insurance policy to an amount less than the face (death benefit) of the policy. The instant policy provided relatively substantial benefits for accident-and sickness; but there was no evidence that plaintiff, who was forty-three years of age at the time of the cancellation, could not have obtained another similar policy; nor was there evidence of the comparative premium cost of such, if obtainable. In this state of the record, there was no evidence upon which the jury could have based a verdict of actual damages for cancellation of the policy in its accident and sickness features.