Court Opinion

ID: 9885836
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-06 15:12:50.11691+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:49:17.416196
License: Public Domain

On Petition to Rehear.
The petition to rehear seems to be based on a pardonable misunderstanding of the court’s ruling. We did not hold that proof of total permanent disability must be made prior to the insured’s sixtieth birthday, or the anniversary of the policy nearest that birthday. This question arose in the case but it was not necessary to decide it. Our holding was that there must be proof furnished the insurer that the insured became totally and permanently disabled before he reached the age of 60, or the anniversary of the policy nearest that birthday. We referred to Hall v. Acacia Mutual Life Association, 164 Tenn., 93, 46 S. W. (2d), 56, and Pacific Mutual Life Ins. Co. v. Hobbs, 168 Tenn., 690, 80 S. W. (2d) 662, as authority for the proposition that due proof was essential.
As pointed out in the opinion, the statements of *651the physicians furnished to the defendant company did not represent the insured’s disability as permanent. Both doctors stated that it was not possible to say when the insured would he able to resume his work. The stipulation of facts set out that the insured contracted tuberculosis and on October 21, 1937 (before his sixtieth birthday), “became wholly and totally disabled and prevented thereby from engaging in any occupation, etc., etc. ’ ’ There was nothing in the stipulation to show that insured’s disability was permanent prior to his sixtieth birthday.
Really it is not necessary to look to the conditions of the policy to justify the result reached by the court. The primary obligation of the policy is to pay disability benefits upon due proof that before reaching the age of 60 “the insured became totally and permanently disabled by bodily injury or disease.” There is no such proof in this record.