Court Opinion

ID: 9702565
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 23:17:04.323028+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:38.886677
License: Public Domain

Souris, J.
(concurring in affirmance). Plaintiff’s right to recover under the insurance policies written “by defendant depends upon whether the insured’s ■death was “due to accidental means alone and independent of all other causes,” as that language is "used in defendant’s policies. The trial court, sitting ■without a jury, decided it was.
Defendant does not contend seriously that the trial judge misconstrued the policy language. His interpretation of the quoted language was eminently correct, following as he did the interpretive guide lines set down in Kangas v. New York Life Insurance Co., 223 Mich 238, at 243, 244:
“In most cases a policy of this character would he of little or no value to the insured if the limiting language be literally interpreted as claimed by the defendant. Death from an external injury, unless instantaneous, is usually the result of various concurring causes. The injury sets in motion other .agencies and awakens dormant internal ailments *606which, contribute to death. These are conditions, rather than causes. If such insurance contracts are to be of any value to the man who pays for the-risk assumed, a construction as fair and reasonable-as the limiting language will permit should be placed upon them. * * *
“There are 2 lines of decisions dealing with the-interpretation of these insurance clauses. Both will be found cited in Abbott v. Travelers Insurance Co., 208 Mich 654. They diverge on the application of the doctrine of proximate cause. I am of the opinion that the qualifying language of the contract may properly be interpreted to mean that the parties intended efficient, proximate cause to be the ultimate-test of liability. This interpretation renders the-contract of some substantial value to the man who-pays the premium as well as to the party who carries, the risk.”
Our only remaining function upon review of this, nonjury law case is to determine whether the judgment was against the preponderance of the evidence.. Court Rule No 64 (1945). Defendant claims it was,, relying upon the testimony of a Dr. Murphy. However, from Dr. Murphy’s own testimony, the trial judge could have found, as he in effect did, that insured’s fall precipitated hematuria which, in turn, “set up a succession of events that eventually led' to the man’s demise.” That Dr. Murphy also testified that insured might have died anyway within 5-years from a tumor is entirely beside the point.. There was no other evidence in the case to refute-the competent evidence that insured’s death was-proximately caused by his accidental fall. Defendant having failed to persuade that the judgment was-against the preponderance of the evidence, the judgment must be affirmed, with costs.
Kavanagh, C. J., and Dethmers, Black, Smith,, and Adams, JJ., concurred with Souris, J.