Draper v. Frontier Insurance

638 N.E.2d 1176, 265 Ill. App. 3d 739, 203 Ill. Dec. 50, 1994 Ill. App. LEXIS 1142
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedAugust 10, 1994
Docket2-93-0666
StatusPublished
Cited by31 cases

This text of 638 N.E.2d 1176 (Draper v. Frontier Insurance) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Court of Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Draper v. Frontier Insurance, 638 N.E.2d 1176, 265 Ill. App. 3d 739, 203 Ill. Dec. 50, 1994 Ill. App. LEXIS 1142 (Ill. Ct. App. 1994).

Opinion

JUSTICE WOODWARD

delivered the opinion of the court:

Plaintiff, Cindy Kaye Draper, sought a declaration that defendant, Frontier Insurance Company, owed her benefits under a life insurance policy it issued to her late husband, James Draper. Plaintiff alleged that, while James Draper was alive, defendant wrongfully "terminated” the policy and that, as a named beneficiary, she was entitled to collect because the policy was still in force. The trial court dismissed the complaint pursuant to section 2 — 619(a)(5) of the Code of Civil Procedure (735 ILCS 5/2 — 619(a)(5) (West 1992)) because the suit was filed outside the 10-year limitations period (735 ILCS 5/13— 206 (West 1992)). Plaintiff appeals.

On appeal, plaintiff advances two arguments for why the court erred in dismissing her complaint. First, the limitations period did not begin until James Draper’s death, as only then did plaintiff acquire the right to sue on the policy. Second, even if her cause of action accrued when James Draper acquired a cause of action for wrongful termination of the policy, the accrual date was at least arguably less than 10 years before plaintiff filed suit.

We hold that: (1) plaintiff’s cause of action for wrongful cancellation accrued when her husband’s identical cause of action accrued; and (2) the trial court erred in concluding on the limited evidence that the date of accrual was more than 10 years before plaintiff filed her complaint. We reverse the order of dismissal and remand the cause for further proceedings.

On January 20, 1993, plaintiff filed a complaint alleging the following facts. James Draper’s policy provided for the waiver of premiums if the insured provided proof that he had become totally disabled. On April 1, 1981, James Draper became totally disabled. He submitted proof of the disability, but, on or about January 26, 1983, defendant wrongfully allowed the policy to lapse. James Draper died November 1, 1989. Because defendant’s "cancellation” of the policy was improper, the policy was still in force, and plaintiff was entitled to recover thereunder.

A copy of the policy is attached to the complaint. The policy provides that all premiums are due and payable in advance and that "[ejxcept as otherwise provided herein, the policy shall automatically become void if any premium is not paid when due.” There is a grace period of 31 days for the payment of every premium after the first; during this grace period, the policy remains in effect. The policy also specifies that, after the nonpayment of any premium, the policy will be reinstated upon written application if premiums due through the time of reinstatement are paid and satisfactory evidence of insurability is furnished.

Defendant moved to dismiss the complaint, arguing that plaintiff’s cause of action accrued on August 28, 1982, when the policy by its terms automatically lapsed because James Draper failed to pay the premium then due. Defendant attached the affidavit of Alberta Dollens, who had reviewed Draper’s claim of total disability. Dollens’ affidavit states that, by letter of December 16, 1982, she denied Draper’s request for a premium waiver. By a letter of January 26, 1983, defendant informed Draper that, because the premium that was due on August 28, 1982, had not been received, the policy had lapsed with no value. Defendant had received no premium payments since August 28,1982, and no further correspondence about the policy until December 1990, when plaintiff inquired about the policy and defendant responded that no benefits were payable because the policy had lapsed on August 28, 1982.

Attached to Dollens’ affidavit is a copy of her letter, dated December 16, 1982, informing James Draper of defendant’s belief that it was "unable to waive your premium at this time” because the form Draper submitted did not disclose that he was totally disabled. Also attached is a copy of defendant’s January 26, 1983, letter informing James Draper that "[s]ince your annual premium *** due August 28, 1992, has not been received, we have lapsed your policy.” The letter states that, upon the payment of the overdue premium and the completion and approval of enclosed reinstatement forms, defendant would reinstate the policy.

After the trial court granted defendant’s motion, plaintiff timely appealed. Before we address plaintiff’s arguments in detail, we set out guidelines for our review of the judgment.

Section 2 — 619 provides a means to dispose of issues of law or of easily proved issues of fact. (Meyers v. Rockford Systems, Inc. (1993), 254 Ill. App. 3d 56, 61; Melko v. Dionisio (1991), 219 Ill. App. 3d 1048, 1057.) A section 2 — 619 motion admits all well-pleaded facts in the complaint but does not admit conclusions of law or conclusions of fact unsupported by specific allegations. (Melko, 219 Ill. App. 3d at 1057.) The trial court should grant the motion only if, after construing the documents supporting the motion in the light most favorable to the nonmovant, it finds no disputed issues of fact. (Meyers, 254 Ill. App. 3d at 61.) The trial court may not weigh the evidence or decide controverted material issues of fact. Melko, 219 Ill. App. 3d at 1057-58.

The parties agree that the applicable limitations period is the 10 years allowed for actions on written contracts. (735 ILCS 5/13 — 206 (West 1992).) They disagree on when this period started to run. We hold that plaintiff was required to file her complaint within 10 years of the accrual of the cause of action for wrongful cancellation. We reject plaintiff’s argument that the limitations period started only upon the death of James Draper.

Plaintiff maintains that, because she is seeking to recover as the beneficiary of a life insurance policy, she had no cause of action until the death of James Draper. She reasons that, until the death of the insured, she had no vested interest in the policy and thus could not have successfully pursued her claim for benefits under the policy. Plaintiff relies in part on a Federal case which applied Pennsylvania law to a similar set of facts and held that, because the insured had the absolute right to change beneficiaries during his lifetime, his surviving spouse acquired a vested right against the insurance company only upon the death of the insured. (Kucera v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. (3d Cir. 1983), 719 F.2d 679, 680.) The majority in Kucera acknowledged that the success of the plaintiff’s claim depended on her allegation that the company wrongfully terminated the policy while the insured was alive, more than six years (the applicable limitations period) before the plaintiff filed her suit. However, the Kucera majority reasoned that the plaintiff’s cause of action accrued only when she had the legal right to sue. Thus, because she could not recover until the death of the insured, the statute of limitations started to run only upon that event and not upon the defendant’s allegedly wrongful act against the insured. Kucera, 719 F.2d at 681.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
638 N.E.2d 1176, 265 Ill. App. 3d 739, 203 Ill. Dec. 50, 1994 Ill. App. LEXIS 1142, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/draper-v-frontier-insurance-illappct-1994.