Burke v. Metropolitan Life Insurance

This is an action on an accident insurance policy issued by defendant to plaintiff April 19, 1935. The facts out of which the action arose are not in dispute and may be summarized as follows:

Plaintiff lives in Yakima. On February 25, 1938, he drove to Portland to attend an initiation of the Forty and Eight Club of the American Legion. The initiation was held in the armory, where Burke, with some five hundred others, witnessed it from the balcony. At the conclusion of the ceremony, the crowd rushed for the stairs. Burke lost his footing at the top and fell down the whole flight of twenty-five…