West v. Life & Casualty Ins. Co. of Tennessee

140 So. 104, 19 La. App. 249, 1932 La. App. LEXIS 289
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedMarch 16, 1932
DocketNo. 4101
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 140 So. 104 (West v. Life & Casualty Ins. Co. of Tennessee) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Louisiana Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
West v. Life & Casualty Ins. Co. of Tennessee, 140 So. 104, 19 La. App. 249, 1932 La. App. LEXIS 289 (La. Ct. App. 1932).

Opinion

McGKEGOR, J.

On March 28, 1930, the defendant issued an intermediate twenty-payment life policy for the sum of $500. The name of the insured was Jeff Nash, and the beneficiary designated was Edna West, the plaintiff herein, who was described in the policy as being the daughter of the insured.

On April 9, 1930, Jeff Nash died, and in due course of time, on June 17, 1930, Edna West prepared and mailed to the defendant the usual proof of death on printed forms evidently furnished to her at her request. Payment on the policy was refused, and this suit to collect the amount of the policy was filed on September 4,1930.

The defendant filed its answer to plaintiff’s petition on October 4,1930. In this answer it was admitted that the policy was issued in the names and for the amount set out in the petition, but it was alleged that the issuance of the policy was obtained through fraud practiced upon the defendant by the plaintiff and other persons. It was admitted that Jeff Nash, the person named as the insured in the policy issued, died as alleged in the petition, but that he (the said Jeff Nash) had never made application to the defendant for insurance and had no connection or business dealings of' any kind with it. It is alleged that at the time it is claimed that Jeff Nash was well and in the home of the plaintiff making the application for the insurance, he was critically ill with cancer of the pancreas, and was a patient in the Charity Hospital in the city of Shreveport. It is further alleged that, at the time when the deceased was alleged to have been well and in the city of Shreveport taking a physical examination for the insurance, he was bedridden at his home near the village of Harmon, in the parish of Red River, and that he remained there until he died on April 9, 1930. It is specially alleged that with the connivance of the plaintiff, on February' 18, 1930, a negro man of comparative youth and of sound health, whose name is unknown, but who falsely claimed that his name was Jeff Nash and that he was the father of Edna Wept, the plaintiff herein, made application to defendant for a twenty-payment life policy in the sum of $500. It is further alleged that subsequently, on March 24, 1930, a negro man of comparative youth and sound health, who was not Jeff Nash, took a medical examination required by the defendant at the hands of defendant’s duly authorized examining physician and was duly passed and approved as a suitable risk for insurance, and that at the said examination the said unknown person falsely represented himself as being Jeff Nash, that, because of the fraud practiced upon it' in the substitution of a strange negro, or strange negroes, who made the application and took the medicál examination in the name of the said Jeff Nash, it was induced to issue the policy of life insurance sued upon, and that, because it was thus fraudulently obtained by the said Edna West, who caused herself to be named beneficiary therein, the said policy is null, void, and of no effect.

A further defense is set up in the defend-; ant’s answer to the effect that, whenever and to whomever the policy was delivered, the real Jeff Nash was not in good health, but was suffering from a fatal disease; that in the application, which was made a part of the policy attached to plaintiff’s petition, willful false statements were made as to the condition of Jeff Nash’s health, the date of his last sickness, the existence of physical infirmities, hospital treatment received by him, and his age. It is alleged that during the entire period covering the making of the application, the taking of the medical examination and the issuance and delivery of the policy sued on the said Jeff Nas'h was slowly dying with a malignant disease and. was in such a condition that he would not and could' not have been accepted as a risk by any insurance company.

It will be readily seen that the defense set up is threefold: (1) That there was a substitution of parties for Jeff Nash in the ¿pplication and in the medical examination. (2) That the real Jeff Nash was not in good health at the time the policy was delivered. (3) That there were fraudulent misrepresentations and false statements in the application with reference to the physical condition, age, and identity of Jeff Nash.

The plaintiff filed a motion to compel the defendant to elect which of these three defenses it would stand on at the trial of the [106]*106case, and it answered the motion by electing to stand upon its defense that there was a substitution of parties for Jeff Nash in the application for the insurance and in the medical examination on which the policy was issued.

At the end of the first trial of the case judgment was rendered in favor of the plaintiff. However, the case was reopened and further testimony was introduced. At the conclusion of this second hearing, judgment was rendered in favor of the defendant and the demand of the plaintiff was rejected. From that judgment the plaintiff is prosecuting this appeal.

Opinion.

The only question at issue in this case is whether Jeff Nash, whose death is admitted and proved, was the person who made application for the policy sued on and who took the medical examination on the basis of which the policy is admitted to have been issued. The application on which the policy was issued was filled out on February 18, 1930, and according to it Jeff Nash was born April 15, 1880, which would make him 50 years old at the time. The agent who took the application stated that at the time it was written he remarked to the plaintiff that the applicant was “right young-looking” to be her father. In the body of the application it w;as stated that the applicant would take his medical examination, two days later, on February 20. The defendant’s examining physician was notified concerning the applicant and made several efforts to get him to his office, but did not succeed until over a month later, when the plaintiff’s husband took a rather young-looking negro man to the doctor’s office and had him examined as Jeff Nash. This man gave his name as Jeff Nash and his age as 50 years. The physician who made the examination testified at the trial of the case and stated that the man ho examined was in perfect health and appeared to him to he not over 45 years of age.

The Jeff Nash who died and whose identity has been established, was a patient in the Charity Hospital from February 12, 1930, until March 2, 1930, suffering from cancer of the pancreas. This fact is established by the records of the hospital, by his wife, Clara Nash, and by Arthur Wilson, one of his neighbors and church brothers. The home of the deceased was at Harmon in Red River parish, and there is not the slightest possibility that he could have been present in Shreveport at plaintiff’s residence at a time anywhere near the date'of the application. On February 18, 1930, the very day on which the application was written, Jeff Nash was in the Charity Hospital, and the nurse’s record for that day, beginning at 1 o’clock a. m., and running through to 12 o’clock p. m., shows twenty-two ¿separate and distinct entries relative to his condition and presence in the hospital. It would he the height of absurdity to presume that he could have been absent from the hospital on that day and in the plaintiff’s home making this application. Furthermore, the man who was present there as the applicant appeared to be in good health and gave his age as 50 years but looked much younger. Jeff Nash was a sick man on that day, and could not have had the appearance of a healthy man.

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Related

Harding v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co.
188 So. 177 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1939)
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93 S.W.2d 450 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1936)
Ludwinska v. John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance
178 A. 28 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1935)

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Bluebook (online)
140 So. 104, 19 La. App. 249, 1932 La. App. LEXIS 289, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/west-v-life-casualty-ins-co-of-tennessee-lactapp-1932.