Court Opinion

ID: 9610780
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 03:47:07.347735+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:03:04.584794
License: Public Domain

Poff, J.,
dissenting.
I would affirm. The evidence was fully sufficient to support the judgment.
I agree that the evidentiary burden required to void an insurance contract is heavier than a preponderance of the evidence. Under Code § 38.1-336, the insurer must produce clear proof of falsity and materiality of the representations made by the insured.
Here, the evidence is not only clear but uncontradicted that:
In 1952, the insured underwent a hysterectomy for fibroids of the uterus;
In 1965, she had a right radical mastectomy for carcinoma of the breast;
In 1969, she was hospitalized for carcinoma of the breast with multiple bony metastases requiring surgery described as right oophorectomy;
On June 1, 1970, she was discharged from the hospital following surgery incident to carcinoma of the breast, metastatic breast cancer, advanced stage;
Thirteen days later, she gave answers to questions on an application for life insurance which falsified all of her medical history except the 1952 hysterectomy; and
The insurer had no knowledge of the insured’s true medical history and no reason to suspect that her representations were false.
This evidence is clear proof that the insured’s representations were false and that they concealed an illness which, in the ordinary course of human experience, shortens normal life expectancy and enlarges the risk assumed in life insurance contracts. The inference arising from that evidence is equally clear; had the insurer known the truth the insured concealed, it would have rejected the risk, conditioned the coverage, or increased the premium rate. In the “reasonable course of business”, it necessarily relied upon the insured’s repre*835sentations. The majority acknowledge that “it is incredible that any responsible insurance company would have issued a policy of life insurance to Mrs. Foxx with knowledge” of her true medical history. Nothing in Code § 38.1-336 requires courts making determinations of materiality to blind themselves to such realities.
Yet, the majority apply a rule that says that proof of materiality is not acceptably “clear” if it rests on an inference of reliance. Under that rule, no matter how clear the evidence and the inferences arising from it may be, it fails to satisfy the statutory evidentiary standard unless the insurer calls a witness (who apparently must be no less than an underwriter) to give rote testimony that it would not have issued the subject policy if it had known the truth. While such testimony is, of course, relevant to the determination of materiality of the misrepresentation, it should not be made, by judicial fiat, a sine qua non of proof of materiality. Materiality should not fail for want of a self-serving declaration of an interested witness if materiality otherwise clearly appears.
The majority borrow the rule they apply here from other cases, all of which are factually distinguishable. While that rule may be appropriate when the facts in evidence do not justify an inference of reliance, see, e.g., Scott v. State Farm Mutual, 202 Va. 579, 118 S.E.2d 519 (1961), when, as here, materiality is shown by clear proof of facts which raise a clear inference of reliance, formalistic testimony of reliance is needlessly cumulative. Justice is seldom served by empty ritual. The statute requires clear proof, not evidentiary over-kill.
Harrison and Cochran, JJ., join in this dissent.