Eller v. Paul Revere Life Ins. Co.

138 F.2d 403, 149 A.L.R. 1191, 1943 U.S. App. LEXIS 2514
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
DecidedOctober 26, 1943
DocketNo. 12640
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 138 F.2d 403 (Eller v. Paul Revere Life Ins. Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Eller v. Paul Revere Life Ins. Co., 138 F.2d 403, 149 A.L.R. 1191, 1943 U.S. App. LEXIS 2514 (8th Cir. 1943).

Opinion

WOODROUGH, Circuit Judge.

This appeal is to reverse a judgment rendered in summary proceedings under Rule 56, Rules of Civil Procedure, 28 U.S.C.A. following section 723c, dismissing the plaintiff’s suit at his costs.

The suit was to recover total disability benefits claimed to be due under an accident insurance policy issued by defendant to plaintiff in 1934. Mr. Eller accidentally fell on an icy sidewalk and was injured January 21, 1937, while the policy was in force, and the insurance company paid him monthly installments due him on account of his resultant total disability in accord with the policy for the period from the date of the accident to March 21, 1938. The last payment was not made until after Mr. Eller had sued the company on the policy, which suit was dismissed on account of the payment. The company refused thereafter to make further payments, and Mr. Eller, claiming that his total disability had continued, again brought suit against the company on the policy for total disability payments for the period from March 21, 1938, to August 21, 1938. Trial of the case resulted in judgment of dismissal.

In the present action it was alleged that the plaintiff’s total disability resulting from [404]*404thé accidental fall on the sidewalk had continued during all of the period from March 21, 1938, to December 5, 1940, and judgment was prayed on account thereof, together with hospital benefits which would be payable under the policy during such continued total disability. The insurance company defended on the ground that by the terms of its policy it was bound to pay Mr. Eller only on account of such total disability as was continuous from the accident and that he was estopped by the final adjudication in his former suit against the company to assert in this action that his accident of January 21, 1937, had caused him to be totally disabled during the period from March 21, 1938, to August 21, 1938, which was involved in that action. The proceedings had in the former action were set out in the company’s pleadings, in exhibits attached, and in exemplified copies referred to and contemporaneously filed with the clerk of court. No reply was filed to the company’s answer as amended, but both parties moved the court to render summary judgment under Rule 56, Rules of Civil Procedure.

On the hearing of the motions the proceedings had in the former contested lawsuit between the same parties were argued by both parties and were considered by the court without objection to foundation for their introduction.1 They show that the former contested suit against the insurance company on the same insurance policy was brought in the Municipal Court of the City of Des Moines, a court of record in Iowa. That plaintiff there alleged the same accident occurring on January 21, 1937, and that injuries had resulted therefrom and that in consequence he had been continuously and totally disabled during the period March 21, 1938, to August 21, 1938. The company there denied that he had been totally disabled during the period. The issue so joined was submitted to the jury on instructions which clearly explained to the jury that the plaintiff claimed that as the result of his fall on January 21, 1937, he had “since January 21, 1937, been continuously and totally disabled” and that the defendant “specifically denies that the plaintiff was so continuously and physically disabled during the period from March 21, 1938, to August 21, 1938,” and that the burden of proof was on plaintiff “to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that as the result of an accident on January 21, 1937, he sustained bodily injuries which directly and independently of all other causes resulted in continuous total disability from and after March 21, 1938.” The jury’s verdict was for defendant insurance company and judgment of dismissal followed. An appeal to the Supreme Court of Iowa resulted in affirmance. Eller v. Paul Revere Life Insurance Co., 228 Iowa 1247, 291 N.W. 866. Mr. Eller obtained an order granting him a new trial, but on second appeal to the Supreme Court such order was reversed and the judgment against him was reinstated and affirmed. Eller v. Paul Revere Life Insurance Co., 230 Iowa 1255, 300 N.W. 535.

It thus appears that the right to recover for total disability continuing after March 21, 1938, which Mr. Eller asserts in this action, has been fully litigated between him and the insurance company in the court of competent jurisdiction to which he submitted the issue and has been finally adjudicated against him.

He has contended in the trial court and on this appeal that the issue in this case is not the identical issue determined in the former case. His position is that in the former case he pleaded and adduced testimony to show that certain personal injuries were inflicted upon him by his fall but that he subsequently discovered through further experiences, medical examinations and diagnoses, and has pleaded here, that the injuries had been in fact different from and more severe than those he pleaded and sought to prove in the municipal court suit.2

But the record herein shows, as has been stated, that long after the entry of the [405]*405former judgment Mr. Eller applied for a new trial of the case in which the judgment against him was rendered, on the ground of newly discovered evidence showing that the injuries inflicted when he fell were different from and more serious than he had believed and alleged them to be on the first trial. In Eller v. Paul Revere Life Insurance Co., 230 Iowa 1255, 300 N.W. 535, the Supreme Court carefully and fully reviewed the evidence of the first trial which included the diagnoses and opinion testimony of competent experts disclosing the •nature and extent of the injuries inflicted upon Mr. Eller as well as the testimony claimed to constitute newly discovered evidence. The court decided that the fact question of the nature and extent of the injuries had been fairly tried, and that the further testimony proffered as newly discovered evidence was merely cumulative of the great mass of the testimony on the trial and could have been availed of before, and that a different result from its inclusion on another trial was not reasonably probable.

In this action the policy provision sued on is the promise to pay an indemnity of $100 a month in case of continuous total disability resulting from accidental injuries. Definition of total disability is included in the contract, and the existence or nonexistence of continuous total disability was the controlling issue of fact necessarily and specifically defined and settled between the parties by the jury verdict and judgment in their former lawsuit. Even if Mr. Eller now has newly discovered evidence concerning the nature and extent of his injuries which might be deemed sufficient to justify a new trial of his former case, it would afford no support to his maintenance of this action. The judgment against him, while it stands, estops him from asserting in any other action against the company that he was continuously totally disabled after March 21, 1938. State of Oklahoma v. State of Texas, 256 U.S. 70, 41 S.Ct. 420, 65 L.Ed. 831; City of New Orleans v. Citizens’ Bank, 167 U.S. 371, 17 S.Ct. 905, 42 L.Ed. 202; United States v. Moser, 266 U.S. 236, 45 S.Ct. 66, 69 L.Ed. 262; Southern Pacific Ry. Co. v.

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Bluebook (online)
138 F.2d 403, 149 A.L.R. 1191, 1943 U.S. App. LEXIS 2514, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/eller-v-paul-revere-life-ins-co-ca8-1943.