Court Opinion

ID: 9644311
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 20:52:50.751538+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:11.413285
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing
(1) To repeat, the defendant’s promise is: “to pay all reasonable expenses * * * for necessary * * * funeral services.”
(2) We agree with the plaintiff that “necessary” does not mean “indispensable” ; but we did not hold that it meant this and we did not, in fact, define “necessary”. However, we think that defendant put “necessary” into its promise, to limit its liability within the $2,000 which was its maximum liability under this, promise, and that in using “necessary” defendant intended to exclude an item which might be appropriate to a funeral arid within the capacity of the insured to pay, but which was only of a matter of personal choice by the insured and was not generally and by common usage done or furnished or provided as a part of a funeral. It may be that common usage sometimes is affected by the station in life of the insured; but the evidence before us simply shows that the use of a vault was a matter of personal choice regardless of station in life.
(3) The word “reasonable” in the defendant’s promise refers only to the amount of the charge made for an item, that is, the sum of money to be paid for an item which is “necessary”.. The fact that the insured may be financially able to pay for a vault in addition to the rest of a funeral does not show that a vault was “necessary’’; and the trial court’s finding that the items in suit -were reasonable expenses are, under our construction of the contract either immaterial of, if. intended to cover the subject matter of “necessary” without support in the evidence.
(4) We do not find that defendant’s counsel stipulated the-issues to be determined or that they did anything in.the trial court which controls our right to give the defendant’s promise the interpretation we think it should have. Plaintiff’s claim and defendant’s defense were bottomed upon the same provision of the contract. It was defendant’s theory that this provision made the defendant not liable for the items in suit, and defendant contested liability upon the evidence of custom and other matters which are summarized in our opinion. The construction to be given the promise of the defendant was a question of law, and the basic contention of the defendant and the proof made by the defendant raised this question for our decision. The plaintiff makes no criticism of the evidence' upon which we have acted nor any criticism of *420our conclusion to render judgment — if he be not entitled to recover upon his own interpretation of the contract and the evidence which he adduced.
The motion for rehearing is overruled.