Donald Vella v. The Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States and the Equitable Group and Life Insurance Co.

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• holding that if “any ambiguity exists” in questions on insurance applications, “the construction will obtain most favorable to the insured”
• applying rule of construing insurance policies against insurer “to questions on insurance applications where the insurance company seeks to avoid liability by citing the answers thereto as misrepresentations”
• evaluating special occupational disability insurance policy under ordinary standard
• “[W Jhere there has been a misrepresentation by an insured, the insurance company can avoid liability on the policy by showing that had it known the truth it would not have issued the exact same policy it did issue.” (collecting cases)
• evaluating special occupational disability insurance policy under ordinary standard

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).