Bowers v. Great Eastern Casualty Co.

Citations

• 260 Pa. 147
• 103 A. 536
• 1918 Pa. LEXIS 483

Syllabus

<p>Insurance — Accident insurance — Intoxication—TJnnecessa/ry exposure to danger — Violation of laws — Speed—Proximate cause— Policy — Construction—Automobile accident — Case for jury.</p> <p>1. Where a clause in an insurance policy provides, “This insurance does not cover......injuries fatal or otherwise, resulting wholly or in part, directly or indirectly from or while or in consequence of being affected by intoxicants,......unnecessary exposure to obvious danger,......violating laws,” a defense thereunder is affirmative in character and the burden rests upon the defendant of showing that the assured, when the accident occurred, was affected by intoxicants, or was violating the law of exposing himself to unnecessary danger.</p> <p>2. Under such policy it is necessary for the defendant to show facts warranting a conclusion that the accident occurred as a consequence or result of the assured having taken intoxicants, and there is no merit in the contention that any physiological change from normal conditions, however slight, superinduced by an intoxicant, avoids the policy.</p> <p>3. In an action by a beneficiary to recover on such policy issued to her husband, who lost his life in an automobile accident, where there was evidence that the accident was caused by the automobile leaving the highway and plunging over an embankment while it was being driven at an excessive rate of speed by the assured, and that the assured, who was at the time returning from a picnic with companions, had taken considerable quantities of intoxicating liquor before the accident, the question whether the intoxicants, the violation of the speed law, or any unnecessary exposure to danger, was the proximate cause of the accident was for the jury and a verdict for the plaintiff will be sustained.</p>