Insurance Company of North America v. Ruby Fay Chinowith

COLEMAN, Circuit Judge:

James C. Chinowith died in a hospital in Corpus Christi on April 2, 1965, his fortieth birthday. The cause of death recited in the official death certificate was “pulmonary hydrothorax due to extensive metastasis from melanoearci-noma”. In lay language this meant that a watery collection on the lungs was the immediate cause of death, but this condition was caused by one of the many forms of cancer. Chinowith had had a rather extensive melanoma removed from his body in 1959 but periodic x-rays had been negative up to a not definitely fixed time prior to his death. It…