Court Opinion

ID: 9762233
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:17:19.69698+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:32.201805
License: Public Domain

STONE, Judge
(dissenting).
I agree with the author of the principal opinion that the language of the insurance certificate “is to be construed” as having the meaning upon which defendant-appellant stands, but I cannot agree that such language is reasonably or fairly susceptible of a different meaning.
The language, on the construction of which the case turns, is: “In the event of the death of the Member named herein, within two years from the date hereof from TUBERCULOSIS, CANCER, HEART DISEASE, or APOPLEXY, or from any chronic disease with which said Member is afflicted AT THE TIME THIS CERTIFICATE IS ISSUED,” the death benefit shall be one-half of that otherwise payable. The construction for which plaintiff-beneficiary contends (hereinafter referred to as plaintiff’s construction) is that the clause “with which said Member is afflicted AT THE TIME THIS CERTIFICATE IS ISSUED” relates back to, and thus modifies, not only “any chronic disease” but also “TUBERCULOSIS, CANCER, HEART DISEASE, or APOPLEXY,” and that (in the words of the principal opinion) “the sense of the meaning is as though the word ‘other’ was inserted before the word ‘chronic.’ ” Defendant-insurer asserts that the quoted language is plain and unambiguous and that its meaning (hereinafter referred to as defendant’s construction) is as i f the parallel modifiers of the opening language (i. e., of “[i]n the event of the death of the Member named herein, within two years from the date hereof”) had been numbered thusly: “(1) from TUBERCULOSIS, CANCER, HEART DISEASE, or APOPLEXY, or (2) from any chronic disease with which said Member is afflicted AT THE TIME THIS CERTIFICATE IS ISSUED.” (All emphasis herein is mine.)
The basic rules to be followed in construction of this certificate are well-settled. “The policy [certificate] is a contract. Plain and unambiguous language must be given its plain meaning. The contract should be construed as a whole; but, in so-far as open to different constructions, that most favorable to the insured must be adopted. State ex rel. Security Mutual Life Ins. Co. v. Allen, 305 Mo. 607, 614, et seq., 267 S.W. 379, 381, 382. However, as said in 14 R.C.L. § 103, p. 931 [see 29 Am.Jur., Insurance, § 260, p. 644], the rule ‘does not authorize a perversion of language, or the exercise of inventive powers for the purpose of creating an ambiguity where none exists.’ ” Wendorff v. Missouri State Life Ins. Co., 318 Mo. 363, 370, 1 S.W.2d 99, 101-102(4, 5), 57 A.L.R. 615; Central Surety & Ins. Corp. v. New Amsterdam Cas. Co., 359 Mo. 430, 435, 222 S.W.2d 76, 78(1); Aetna Life Ins. Co. of Hartford, Conn. v. Durwood, Mo., 278 S.W.2d 782, 786(2, 3). And, in determining whether a policy contract is ambiguous, we should view it through the same eyeglasses that we use in reading other contracts. Central Surety & Ins. Corp., supra, 359 Mo. loc. cit. 438, 222 S.W.2d loc. cit. 80(4,5); Henderson v. Massachusetts Bonding & Ins. Co., 337 Mo. 1, 6, 84 S.W.2d 922, 924(1) ; Sulzbacher v. Travelers Ins. Co., 8 Cir., 137 F.2d 386, 391 (10).
The choice of words, syntax, and punctuation alike point to defendant’s construction and, by the same token, militate against plaintiff’s construction. To accept plaintiff’s construction, it becomes necessary to ignore the fact that the opening language is modified by two parallel phrases (i. e., “from TUBERCULOSIS, CANCER, HEART DISEASE, or APOPLEXY” or “from any chronic disease * * * ”) and, in so doing, disregard and accord no effect (a) to the “or” immediately preceding “APOPLEXY” and (b) to the “from” immediately preceding “any chronic disease.” Moreover, plaintiff’s construction, “the sense of which is as though the word ‘other’ was inserted before the word ‘chronic,’ ” literally makes-*823no “sense.” For, of the four diseases named in the first modifying phrase (i. e., “TUBERCULOSIS, CANCER, HEART DISEASE, or APOPLEXY”), “apoplexy” is not a chronic disease1 and “heart disease” may not be.2 Granting that “an insurance policy is not necessarily to be construed in the manner of a (hopefully) painstaking lawyer,” nevertheless I am unwilling to join in a holding that is designed, in effect, not only to discourage, dispirit and dismay that modicum of the legal profession who are “hopefully painstaking” in use of the English language but also to penalize, punish and mulct a client who seeks out counsel in that category.
Ambiguity is not to be predicated solely on a judicial belief that the same thought might have been “better or more accurately expressed” in other language [Terry v. New York Life Ins. Co., 8 Cir., 104 F.2d 498, 504(13)], or on the complexity of the sentence structure, for “complexity need not equate with ambiguity.” State Bank of Poplar Bluff v. Maryland Casualty Co., 8 Cir., 289 F.2d 544, 547. And a contract is not rendered ambiguous by disagreement of the parties as to its meaning [Mickelberry’s Food Products Co. v. Haeussermann, Mo., 247 S.W.2d 731, 738(6); Andrews v. St. Louis Joint Stock Land Bank, 8 Cir., 107 F.2d 462, 468(10), certiorari denied Cantley v. Andrews, 309 U.S. 667, 60 S.Ct. 592, 84 L.Ed. 1014, rehearing denied 309 U.S. 697, 60 S.Ct. 711, 84 L.Ed. 1036; National Pigments & Chemical Co. v. C. K. Williams & Co., 8 Cir., 94 F.2d 792, 795(1)], or by the fact that others, whether lawyers or laymen, may have construed the same language differently. Orr v. Mutual Life Ins. Co. of New York, D.C.Mo., 57 F.2d 901, 903(4), affirmed 8 Cir., 64 F.2d 561; Terry, supra, 104 F.2d loc. cit. 503-504. In the language of the late Judge Merrill E. Otis, a perspicacious scholar and courageous jurist; “If we say that language becomes ambiguous because some one contends it is ambiguous or some other concludes it is ambiguous, we save ourselves much labor, but we have applied a test that scarcely will stand examination. Unless we can point out in language we are considering wherein it has a double meaning, we are not justified in saying it is ambiguous, however many learned judges and unlearned laymen have voted ‘yes’ upon the question, ‘Is it ambiguous ?’ ” Orr, supra, 57 F.2d loc. cit. 903.
It would be well-nigh impossible to draft any contract of insurance in such language as would afford protection to all insureds against their own carelessness or incompetence in construction thereof and as would not be of uncertain meaning to some of them. But “ ‘[w]ords cannot be said to be ambiguous because they are unintelligible to a man who cannot read; nor is a written instrument ambiguous or uncertain merely because an ignorant or uninformed person may be unable to interpret it. It is ambiguous only when found to be of uncertain meaning by persons of competent skill and information.’ ” Commonwealth Casualty *824Co. v. Aichner, 8 Cir., 18 F.2d 879, 883; Ransdell v. North American Accident Ins. Co., 275 Ky. 507, 122 S.W.2d 114, 117; 1 Greenleaf on Evidence, § 298, p. 478. Believing that the average reader should have no serious difficulty in arriving at the meaning of the language under discussion, if it be perused with the ordinary care which the law requires [Commonwealth Casualty Co., supra, 18 F.2d loc. cit. 883], I am of the opinion that the certificate is not “reasonably or fairly susceptible of different constructions” and that therefore it is not ambiguous. State ex rel. National Life Ins. Co. v. Allen, 301 Mo. 631, 638, 256 S.W. 737, 739(3).
Entertaining proper respect for the views of others, I nevertheless am impelled to give voice to my own persuasion that the principal opinion strains mightily to find (to me nonexistent) ambiguity. I would accord to the language of the unidentified but painstaking draftsman of the certificate what I believe to be its plain and intended meaning, which would result in reversal of the judgment nisi.

. “Apoplexy” is defined as: “A sudden diminution or loss of consciousness, sensation, and voluntary motion, caused by hemorrhage into the brain from rupture of an artery, or by sudden anemia of a part of the brain from obstruction of its artery, either by the formation of a clot or by the lodgment of an embolus;— commonly called stroke." Webster’s New International Dictionary (2nd Ed.), p. 127. “ ‘Apoplexy’ is a non-medical term which is usually used to describe what is popularly known as a ‘stroke.’ It implies a sudden attack of occlusion or hemorrhage involving an artery in the brain, with marked neurological deficits (predominantly paralysis).” Gray, Attorneys’ Textbook of Medicine (3rd Ed.), Vol. 2, § 91.01. See Maloy, Medical Dictionary for Lawyers (1942), p. 42; Dorland, The American Illustrated Medical Dictionary (21st Ed.), p. 130; Cecil, Textbook of Medicine (7th Ed.), p. 1575.

. This is demonstrated in the principal opinion, where it is held that the insured, who (according to plaintiff-beneficiary) “had no heart trouble or heart disease prior to the day of his death” and who died of a “coronary occlusion” with only “8 hours” intervening “between onset and death,” died of “heart disease.”