Dietz v. Metropolitan Life Ins.

Citations

• 168 Pa. 504
• 32 A. 119
• 1895 Pa. LEXIS 831

Syllabus

<p>Insurance — Life insurance — Health of insured — Misrepresentations.</p> <p>A policy of life insurance stipulated that “ no obligation is assumed by the company prior to the date hereof, nor unless upon said date the assured is alive and in sound health.” The assured died of typhoid pneumonia. The physician who attended him in his last illness filled out a blank furnished by defendant, in which, in reply to the question: ‘ ‘ Was deceased afflicted with any infirmity, deformity or chronic disease ? If so, specify,” he wrote “ Epilepsy.” The father and sister of the assured testified that the assured had fits during childhood, but that he had not been so afflicted for twelve years prior to the date of the policy, and that he was in sound health when the policy was issued. Held, that the question as to whether the assured was in sound health at the date of the policy was for the jury.</p> <p>In such a case it is not error for the court to charge “ A man may have sick headache temporarily, and still be considered in sound health, although abstractly considered it is not sound health; so a man may have an attack of rheumatism; now abstractly he would not be considered to be in sound health, and yet I apprehend that in the meaning of this policy he would be in sound health if it was just a temporary attack of rheumatism. . . . These little infirmities, or rather these little attacks of temporary disease, — headache, or a little attack of rheumatism, or some little attack of that kind, — I do not apprehend are what is meant in this policy to be ‘ sound health,’ because they have no probable bearing upon the man’s life.”</p>