Hughes v. Central Accident Insurance

Citations

• 222 Pa. 462
• 71 A. 923
• 1909 Pa. LEXIS 896

Syllabus

<p>Insurance — Accident insurance — Immediate notice — Question for jury— Reasonable time.</p> <p>In. an action upon a policy of accident insurance requiring immediate notice to be given of an accident, the word “immediate” is to be construed as meaning a reasonable time after the accident under the facts and circumstances of the particular case.</p> <p>The court is justified in ruling as a matter of law that notice has not been given in time only where the admitted facts and circumstances disclose nothing by way of extenuation or excuse.</p> <p>Where a passenger on a railroad train, struck by a cinder in the eye, experiences no immediate ill results, but five weeks afterwards is informed by a physician that a cataract is forming on his eye as a result of the accident, and notice is thereupon immediately given to an accident insurance company in which the passenger was insured, the question whether the notice was given within a reasonable time under the circumstances, is a question for the jury.</p> <p>Where a person insured in an accident insurance company gives a notice, sufficient in form, of an accident to himself, and the company denies all liability on the sole ground that the notice was too late, but subsequently sends the insured a blank form with a letter in which, while denying liability, and not admitting any waiver, it requested the insured to state the facts on the form so that if he had any equity it might be ascertained, the blank filled out by the insured, in form a sufficient proof of loss, is for the consideration of the jury as one of the elements in the case.</p> <p>While courts will extend all reasonable protection to insurers, by allowing them to hedge themselves about by conditions intended to guard against fraud, carelessness, want of interest, and the like, they will nevertheless enforce the salutary rule of 'construction, that as the language of the conditions is theirs, and it is therefore in their power to provide for every proper case, i