PLATT v. JOHN HANCOCK MUT. LIFE INS. CO., 361 Pa. 652 (1949)

66 A.2d 266

Platt, Appellant v. John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.April 15, 1949.
May 23, 1949.

Insurance — Life insurance — Fraud of insured — Evidence — Competent and uncontradicted documentary evidence — Judgment for defendant.

1. Where, in an action by the beneficiary on a policy of life insurance, it affirmatively appears from competent and uncontradicted documentary evidence that the policy was issued in reliance on false material statements, made by the insured, with knowledge of their falsity, the court may direct a verdict or enter judgment for the insurer. [653-4]

2. Travellers Insurance Company v. Heppenstall Company, 360 Pa. 433, distinguished. [654]

Evidence — Admissibility — Hospital records — Act of May 4, 1939, P. L. 42.

3. Under the Act of May 4, 1939, P. L. 42, hospital records are admissible as documentary evidence to show the fact of hospitalization, treatment prescribed and symptoms given. [654]

Argued April 15, 1949.

Before MAXEY, C. J., DREW, LINN, STERN, PATTERSON, STEARNE and JONES, JJ.

Appeal, No. 80, Jan. T., 1949, from judgment of Common Pleas No. 5, Philadelphia Co., June T., 1945, No. 712, in case of Lillian Platt v. John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company. Judgment affirmed.

Page 653

Assumpsit. Before ALESSANDRONI, J.

Verdict for plaintiff; judgment n. o. v. entered for defendant. Plaintiff appealed.

Harry Goldbacher, for appellant.

William H. Peace, 2nd, with him Ira Jewell Williams an White, Williams Scott, for appellee.

OPINION BY MR. JUSTICE ALLEN M. STEARNE, May 23, 1949:

This is an appeal from a judgment entered for defendan non obstante veredicto in a suit by a beneficiary against an insurance company on its policy which insured the life of plaintiff’s husband. Judgment was entered for defendant because the uncontradicted documentary evidence established false and fraudulent statements made by the insured in the insurance application, upon which the insurer relied in issuing the policy.

The policy was issued on April 24, 1943. Insured died within three months thereafter on July 3, 1943. The cause of death was “a respiratory arrest,” with contributing cause “widespread ulcerative caseous tuberculosis bilateral,” which, in lay language, is an advanced state of tuberculosis.

In answering, in the negative, questions in the application, the insured denied, and did not disclose, that he had been medically treated and hospitalized for tuberculosis. The undisputed evidence established that he was aware of the nature of his illness. At one time he was admitted to the hospital after he had “expectorated about a cupful of bright blood and clots.” The official hospital records disclose his numerous admissions to the hospital, the diagnosis and treatment for tuberculosis. That the insured’s statements were false, and he knew them to be false, cannot be doubted from an examination of this undisputed documentary evidence. This precludes

Page 654

recovery: Freedman v. The Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York, 342 Pa. 404, 21 A.2d 81; Prevete v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, 343 Pa. 365, 22 A.2d 691; Derr et al. v. Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York, 351 Pa. 554, 41 A.2d 542. The present factual situation differs from that where the insured suffered from an insidious and latent disease of which he was unaware: Travellers Insurance Company v. Heppenstall Company, 360 Pa. 433, 61 A.2d 809.

The hospital records were properly admitted as documentary evidence to show the fact of hospitalization, treatment prescribed and symptoms given: Act of May 4, 1939, P. L. 42, 28 PS, 91b; Freedman v. The Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York, supra, 412.

Judgment affirmed.

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