Pacific Mutual Life Insurance v. Despain
Supreme Court of Kansas
Error from Wyandotte court of common pleas; William G. Holt, judge. STATEMENT. This is an action on an accident-insurance policy issued December 20, 1904, to William Despain by the Pacific Mutual Life Insurance Company, of California, to recover $2000 as indemnity for the loss of the sight of both eyes, resulting, it was alleged, from an accidental injury sustained on January 1, 1905. The defense of the company was that plaintiff’s loss of sight was due to an injury received…
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Error from Wyandotte court of common pleas; William G. Holt, judge. STATEMENT. This is an action on an accident-insurance policy issued December 20, 1904, to William Despain by the Pacific Mutual Life Insurance Company, of California, to recover $2000 as indemnity for the loss of the sight of both eyes, resulting, it was alleged, from an accidental injury sustained on January 1, 1905. The defense of the company was that plaintiff’s loss of sight was due to an injury received in October, 1904, and that this injury was a sole or contributing cause of the loss of sight -of one or both eyes. It…
1Opinion of the Court
The opinion of the court was delivered by
Johnston, C. J.:
The principal complaint of the insurance company is that the trial court in its charge to the jury in effect excluded material issues,- and withdrew from the jury defenses which were .vital and upon which there was strong supporting evidence. One of these was that the injury sustained by plaintiff about three months before the policy was issued contributed to,.if it did not cause, the blindness of'one or both of his eyes. Another was the defense that the policy was void by reason of breaches of the warranties in the application.
Whether…
2Cases cited1 opinion
- Honick v. Metropolitan Street-railway Co.Supreme Court of Kansas · 1903
3Cited by8 opinions
- Kerns v. Ætna Life Ins.Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit · 1923
- Schneider v. Washington National InsuranceSupreme Court of Kansas · 1968
- White v. New York Life Ins. Co.Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit · 1944
- Ætna Life Ins. Co. of Hartford v. RyanCourt of Appeals for the Second Circuit · 1918
- Despain v. Pacific Mutual Life InsuranceSupreme Court of Kansas · 1910
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