O'Hara v. Metropolitan Life Insurance

Citations

• 73 Pa. Super. 434
• 1920 Pa. Super. LEXIS 33

Syllabus

<p>Insurance — Insurance policy — Judgment by defcmlt — Petition to open judgment.</p> <p>In an action to recover insurance due on an insurance policy an averment in the plaintiff’s statement, which alleges that the plaintiff is the wife of the deceased, is sufficient to show relationship and to qualify the plaintiff as the beneficiary under the terms of a policy which reads:</p> <p>“In ease of the death of the insured the company may pay the amount due under the policy to any relative by blood or connection by marriage of the insured, or to any other person appearing to said company to be equitably entitled to the same by reason of having incurred expenses on behalf of the insured,” etc.</p> <p>Proof of death — Presumption of death — Absence for seven years.</p> <p>The presumption of death arising from the absence of the person for seven years, unheard from, stands as competent and satisfactory proof until it is successfully rebutted by competent evidence to the contrary. If a party left his home without saying where he was going, or if he left his home on a business trip or a pleasure trip and nothing had been heard from him for a period of seven years, the presumption would arise' that he was dead.</p> <p>Where an insurance policy required that any action should be brought within six months from the date of the death of the insured, a suit commenced within six months after the date when the presumption of death arose, is in time.</p> <p>Judgments — Opening judgments — Discretion of the court.</p> <p>Where one of the reasons set forth in the petition to open a judgment is that the counsel for the defendant was misled by the statements of the counsel for the plaintiff, the decision of the lower court refusing to open the judgment will not be reversed, in the absence of any proof of the abuse of judicial discretion.</p>