Keatley ex rel. Nixon v. Travelers' Insurance

Citations

• 187 Pa. 197
• 40 A. 808
• 1898 Pa. LEXIS 790

Syllabus

<p>Insurance — Life insurance — Warranty—Statements in application as to health.</p> <p>In an action upon a policy of life insurance, it appeared that the deceased had stated in his application that he never had apoplexy, paralysis, or any other “illness” or “local disease,” and that to his knowledge there was not then existing any disorder-or weakness tending to impair his constitution. At the conclusion of a number of answers was the following warranty: “I hereby declare and warrant that every foregoing statement is true without evasion or reservation, to the best of my knowledge or belief.” The insured also stated in his application that he had used alcoholic and malt stimulants, but at the date of the application was strictly temperate. It appeared that about three months before the application the insured had an attack of temporary illness, but the evidence was conflicting as to whether it was apoplexy, paralysis or prostration incident to ovorindulgence in stimulants. He had been told by a physician that if he did not stop drinking he would die. The testimony was conflicting as to whether a physician had told him that his illness was paralysis. There was evidence that prior to the application the insured had suffered from headache, especially after eating, and that there was some irregularity of the heart. Held, (1) that the warranty was, not that the statements in the application were absolutely correct, but that the insured had not consciously or wilfully falsified; (2) that the question whether the statements in the application were true, or were believed by the insured to be true, was for the jury; and (3) that, considering that insured might have thought the illness was due to his drinking, which he had stopped at the date of the application, the question was for the jury whether it was of a character material to the risk, within the act of June 23, 1885, sec. 1, providing that no false statement, made in good faith by the applicant, shall effect a forfei