Howard Verlo v. The Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States, a New York Corporation

I respectfully dissent. The majority’s construction of the insurance policy is unreasonable, contrary to settled law, and violative of the spirit of the statutory provisions mandating the extension of death benefits during the thirty-one day conversion period.

The experienced district judge found that a regularly scheduled and periodic suspension of work, such as a lunchbreak or a weekend, was not a cessation of active work in the “plain, ordinary, and popular sense,” and that a contrary interpretation would be “unduly strained and hypertechnical.” Judge Larson’s interpretation comports with…