Landau v. Pac. Mutl. Life Insurance Co.

267 S.W. 370, 305 Mo. 542, 1924 Mo. LEXIS 486
CourtSupreme Court of Missouri
DecidedDecember 18, 1924
StatusPublished
Cited by18 cases

This text of 267 S.W. 370 (Landau v. Pac. Mutl. Life Insurance Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Landau v. Pac. Mutl. Life Insurance Co., 267 S.W. 370, 305 Mo. 542, 1924 Mo. LEXIS 486 (Mo. 1924).

Opinions

*546 RAGLAND, J.-

-This suit has for its basis a policy of insurance issued by defendant to one Morris Rich. According to certain provisions of the policy, the defendant obligated itself to pay' to plaintiff, the beneficiary therein named, the sum of $30,000, in the event that the insured, while on a public conveyance, sustained bodily injury, through accidental means, which resulted directly, independently and exclusively of all other causes in death. The policy contained the further provision that in case of the death of the insured from suicide the defendant would pay the beneficiary the sum of $1000.

The petition, after alleging the execution of the policy and pleading the provisions thereof above referred to, except the stipulation as to suicide, to which no reference was made, stated:

“That the death of the said Morris Rich occurred on or about the 9th day of June, 1919, and resulted solely from bodily injuries effected directly and independently of all other causes through external, violent and accidental means, to-wit:

“The insured was engaged in riding upon a Creve Goeur Lake street car, returning from the lake to the city of St. Louis, at a point about one and one-half miles east of the lake, when and where he attempted to change his seat on the car and stepped into and on the side passageway of said car, and while being in and on the floor of said passageway of said car and in the act of going from one part of the car to another for that purpose, he accidentally fell from the car, which resulted in the following injuries, to-wit:

“Badly crushed leg and severe nervous shock and loss of blood which caused the death of the insured on said 9th day of June, A. D. 1919.”

*547 The answer admitted the execution of the policy and that the defendant thereby undertook and agreed to pay the plaintiff the sum mentioned in case of death of the insured from bodily injuries sustained while said policy was in force, from external, violent and accidental means, but deniéd all the other allegations of the petition. It further averred, however, that the death of the insured was due to suicide, and that said policy expressly provided that in such event the liability of the defendant should be limited to $1000. In addition to the above, the falsity of certain declarations made by the insured in his application for the policy and in his applications for the annual renewal thereof, alleged to have been warranties, was pleaded as a defense.

With respect to the facts the following from appellant’s statement fairly outlines those about which there is no essential controversy:

“The insured, Morris Rich, was born January 14, 1850, and died June 9, 1919. In his earlier years he had been a mining engineer in the West; subsequently a contractor in St. Louis.; and for perhaps ten or twelve years before his death he had done nothing. He had one child, the plaintiff here, married to one Landau, with whom Rich resided in St. Louis. He was quite fond of this daughter and her child. To his friends and social acquaintances he exhibited nothing wrong — nothing abnormal. . . .

“The Creve Coeur electric line runs a distance of about twelve miles in St. Louis County from Delmar Car-den to Creve Coeur Lake. Delmar Carden Is its point of connection with the city cars; Creve Coeur Lake, its other terminus, is a kind of summer resort. It runs (a double track) over a private right of way, mostly fenced, over hill and down dale, through cuts, over embankments and bridges. In physical characteristics it is in no respect unlike any ordinary Steam railroad traversing a similar country, and is not at all like unto the ordinary city or large town electric car line. The longest trestle *548 on the line is one spanning both a oreek and the tracks of the Rock Island Railroad, and situated about a mile and a half from the Creve Coeur Lake terminus. This trestle is three hundred feet or more in length and from twenty-five to thirty-five feet high. The western approach thereto is upon an embankment of three or four hundred feet in length, which, at its junction with the trestle, has a height of about twenty-five feet. The iron supports of the trestle project above the track level some three or four feet and are visible to passengers on a car approaching from the west six or seven hundred feet away, the' track being straight and level for that distance. There are some sixty stopping places between Delmar Garden and Creve Coeur, seven of which are between the Rock Island trestle and Creve Coeur. Cars only stop at these places where there are either persons to get on or passengers to get off. At no point on the line will more than a minute elapse after a passenger on the car rings the bell before the car will reach and stop at the next stopping place, so frequent are they along the line. The running time from Delmar Garden to Creve Coeur was thirty-five minutes, with a five-minute stay at each terminus.

“Car No. 810 of the Creve Coeur Lake line is an open ‘Moonlight’ car. The seats run crosswise the car and are as long as the car is wide. The left or inner side of the car is inclosed with iron netting. There is a running board along the right-hand side of the ear for passengers to step on in boarding the car, and handholds on the ends of the seats to assist the passenger in lifting himself from the running board to the floor level. Stanchions at every other seat support the roof and these also serve as handholds for the same purpose. Each seat is like every other seat. Each of them will seat six .persons in entire comfort. The back of each seat is equipped with bells at convenient intervals, so that passengers may signal for stops. There are no accommodations of any kind on the car other than a place to sit down and ride. . . .

*549 “At about twelve o’clock on the day of his death, June 9, 1919, Rich, the insured, boarded this car No. 810 at Delmar Garden and rode the thirty-five-minute, twelve-mile ride from Delmar Garden to Creve Coeur Lake. He sat in one of the rear seats. He did not get off the ear during its five-minute stay at the lake, but rode back again to Delmar Garden. Arriving there, he again remained on the car during the stop, and rode back to Creve Coeur. Here he again did not get off. During all of this time he sat toward the rear of the oar. He had not moved at all unless at one of these stops he had moved from one of these long seats to another next to it, as to which the operators of the car were uncertain. When the car was leaving Creve Coeur on Rich’s second round trip, he occupied the third or fourth seat from the rear, alone. There were about twenty passengers on the car, and its capacity was sixty. ’ ’

On his second réturn trip and while the car on which he was riding was entering upon the Rock Island trestle, heretofore described, Rich fell, or jumped, from the car, landing close to the railroad tracks some twenty-five or thirty feet below. He thereby sustained such injuries that he died within a few hours afterward.

Three eyewitnesses attempted to detail from the witness stand Rich’s movements at and immediately prior to the time he left the car: Robert Hendricks, a high school boy sixteen years of age; a Mrs. Youngblood, the wife of the conductor in charge of the car; and a negro man named Blakesly.

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Bluebook (online)
267 S.W. 370, 305 Mo. 542, 1924 Mo. LEXIS 486, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/landau-v-pac-mutl-life-insurance-co-mo-1924.