Court Opinion

ID: 9645441
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 21:24:47.215336+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:28.410121
License: Public Domain

PALMORE, Judge
(dissenting).
The view that one who applies for a policy of insurance cannot be heard to say that he did not read the application before signing it is reasonable only if the applicant is able to read. Applied to an illiterate person, on the theory that he ought to obtain the services of a third person to read ithe application for him, such a principle simply ignores the realities of life. We .know, for example, from the frequency of .this type of case in the courts that even the average man who can read and write, and who is educated and experienced, is apt to 'trust the agent from whom he purchases an .insurance policy to the extent that he permits the agent to fill out the application and then signs without reading it. How often can it really be expected that an illiterate person would be so circumspect as to realize that he ought to secure the services of some disinterested party before signing the application?
In Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Tannenbaum, Ky.1951, 240 S.W.2d 566, 571, Judge Moremen wrote that he was able to concur in the majority opinion only on the ground of stare decisis, not on the basis of its legal philosophy. But “the inn that shelters for the night is not the journey’s end. The law, like the traveler, must be ready for the morrow. It must have the principle of growth.” Cardozo, The Growth of the Law, p. 20. Certainty and order are the sole objectives of stare decisis. But the judicial process, in which stare decisis plays only a part, seeks to correct deformities as well as uncertainties. Ibid., p. 19. I believe the rule stated in 12 Am.Jur. 630, the Tannenbaum case, and the majority opinion in this case is conducive to injustice. Therefore, I would overrule the Tannenbaum case and permit a jury to determine whether the agent or the illiterate applicant was responsible for the omissions in the application.