Court Opinion

ID: 9825238
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 12:22:18.937936+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:40:35.867506
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
On certiorari to the Supreme Court,, that court declared that the appellee’s plea in abatement was not subject to demurrer-on the grounds assigned.
The record informs us that the appellant filed replications 1 to 13, inclusive, to< the plea in abatement as amended. (The-plea in abatement as amended, as it appears on pages 6 to 10 of the transcript,, and the replications will be set out in the report of this case.)
*27Each replication was demurred to on six grounds, which the reporter will set out.
The demurrer to replication 10 was overruled, and the demurrer to all the other replications was sustained.
The opinion here prevails that the court below did not err in sustaining the demurrer to replications 1 to 9, and 11 to 13, inclusive.
The contract of insurance obligated the insurance company to make the payments called for in the contract to an employee who became wholly and permanently disabled before reaching the age of 60; the payments to begin six months after the receipt of due proof of such disablement. Under the express language of the contract, the first payment was not due until the expiration of six months after the receipt of due proof of such disablement.
A contract of the kind sued on is to be distinguished from a contract where the amount called for in the contract is due immediately upon receipt of proof. In the contract sued on the obligation is not due until the expiration of six months after the receipt of proof. The denial of liability by the insurer does not have the effect of maturing the obligation by advancing the date of payment. While a denial of liability as a waiver of the provision in the policy calling for submission of due proof of such disablement, such waiver would not accelerate the due date of the first payment provided for in the policy. The waiver would simply relieve the insured of the obligation to file the proof called for by the contract, and the first payment would be due six months after the waiver occurred. In the first instance, without a waiver, the first payment would be due six months after receipt of proof of the disablement. If the insurer sees fit to waive the provision requiring the submission of due proof of the disability, that without more would not constitute a waiver of the provision that the first payment would be due and payable six months after the submission of such proof.
Where proof of disability has been waived, the situation of the parties is, in legal effect, the same as if it had been furnished. Had the proof been furnished, the first payment would have been due six months after it was furnished. If it was waived, the first payment would be due •six months from the date of the waiver.
We think this is made clear by th'e case of Hundley v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, 205 N.C. 780, 172 S.E. 361, and on that authority we hold that no reversible error was committed in the ruling on the demurrer to the replications.
The record discloses that the case was tried upon the complaint, the plea in abatement, as amended, and replication 10. At the conclusion of the evidence, the court, at the request of the appellee, gave the following charge in writing: “The court charges the jury that if you believe the 'evidence, you will find issues in favor of the defendant,” and refused the affirmative instructions with hypothesis requested in writing by appellant.
Appellant’s replication 10 reads as follows: “For that before the bringing of this suit, to wit, on or about May 24, 1933, defendant denied liability upon the claim involved in this suit upon the sole ground of its contention that plaintiff was not permanently and totally disabled; that it therefore waived formal proof of claim, authorized immediate suit, and he therefore avers that said plea cannot operate as an abatement of this suit.”
In replication 10 the plaintiff assumed the burden of furnishing evidence to sustain his claim that the defendant denied liability upon the claim involved on or about May 24, 1933, upon the sole ground that plaintiff was not permanently and totally disabled. In order to carry the’ burden imposed upon him by replication 10, the bill of exceptions informs us that the plaintiff offered in evidence Exhibits A to Q, inclusive. Exhibits' A and B consisting of certificate of insurance and group policy, were admitted in evidence. The defendant’s objection to the admission in evidence of exhibits C to Q, inclusive, was sustained and the ruling on each is here assigned for error.
The certificate of insurance was issued to plaintiff while he was employed by the Anniston Manufacturing Company. It appears that he worked for that concern until his job was abolished in June, 1931, when the insurance on appellant terminated. The first claim he made that he was totally and permanently disabled was made in December, 1932.
A reference to the bill of exceptions discloses that the appellant did not call a single witness in his behalf. He offered only the documentary evidence referred to. *28The two exhibits that were admitted in evidence had no tendency to prove the essential allegation in replication 10, to the effect that the defendant denied liability upon the claim involved in this suit upon the sole ground of its contention that plaintiff was not permanently and totally disabled. The question then occurs: Was any error committed in rejecting exhibits C to Q, inclusive ?
As we read those exhibits, they do not show,' or tend to show, that appellee denied-liability on the sole ground that the plaintiff was not totally and permanently disabled, as alleged in appellant’s replication 10. Had these exhibits, therefore, been admitted in evidence, appellant would still lack a scintilla of evidence to support this essential averment in replication 10.
In the view we now take of the case, the admission or rejection of these exhibits would not have altered the appellant’s position. Had they been admitted in evidence, the appellant would have found himself in identically the same situation that the record discloses he is now; that is to say, he did not furnish a scintilla of evidence supporting the material allegations of replication 10, to the effect that the defendant denied liability upon the claim involved in this suit, upon the sole ground of its contention that plaintiff was not permanently and totally disabled.
For these reasons the court is of the opinion that no error prejudicial to the appellant is shown by the record, and for that reason the judgment appealed from is affirmed.
The former opinion in this case, filed on November 5, 1935, is hereby withdrawn, and the foregoing opinion is substituted.
Application overruled.
Affirmed.