GEORGIE W. MCCALLUM, APPELLANT,
v.
MUTUAL LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY OF NEW YORK, A NEW YORK CORPORATION, APPELLEE

4th Cir. | 1960-01-20
No. 8004
274 F.2d 431 United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (1960) Positive Treatment
Cited by 2 cases

AI-generated. These summaries, headnotes, and key points are machine-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Always verify against the full opinion text below. Not legal advice.


Holding

The court held that death by aspiration of vomitus does not constitute death through 'external, violent and accidental means' under the double indemnity provisions of the insurance policies.


Facts & Procedural History

Plaintiff sought double indemnity benefits after the insured died from suffocation due to aspirating vomitus. The District Court granted summary judgm…

The full statement of facts, procedural history, and disposition for this case are member content.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

© FLexlaw, Inc. — AI-generated enrichments are proprietary. All rights reserved.


Opinion of the Court
PER CURIAM.

PER CURIAM.

Plaintiff; appellant, seeks to recover from Mutual Life Insurance Company, appellee and defendant below, under double indemnity provisions of life insurance policies in event of death of insured as a direct result of bodily injury effected through external, violent and accidental means. The District Court sustained a motion for summary judgment filed by the insurance company.

The opinion of the District Court is reported in 1959, 175 F.Supp. 3, 7. It was there stated:

“If called upon to instruct the jury on the interpretation of what is meant by the words ‘external means’, it would be incumbent upon this Court to find, under the uncontradicted facts, that the insured did not die from injuries solely through ‘external means’ * * *

The immediate cause of death of the insured was determined to be suffocation, due to aspiration of vomitus. There was no “mechanical lodging of food in the windpipe”. The pathological diagnosis, contained in the report of autopsy, revealed “acute aspiration of gastric contents to trachea, bronchi and bronchi-oles” and the probable cause of death was stated as “acute aspiration of gastric contents to trachea”.

We affirm and adopt the opinion of the District Court, insofar as it is based upon its interpretation of “external means” and its determination that the death of the insured was not a direct result of bodily injury effected through external means, within the meaning of the double indemnity provisions of the insurance policies.1

Affirmed.

. The District Court referred to, and briefly discussed, the case of Landress v. Phoenix Mut. Life Ins. Co., 1934, 291 U.S. 491, 54 S.Ct. 461, 78 L.Ed. 934, which involved the construction and application of insurance policy provisions pertaining to death by accidental means. For a discussion. of the applicable law in the Commonwealth of Virginia as to insurance coverage in event of death by “accidental means” see the decision of this court on rehearing, speaking through Judge Soper, American Nat. Ins. Co. v. Belch, 4 Cir., 1938, 100 F. 2d 48, 50, 51.


Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus


Citator

Cited By

Authorities Cited

Full citator, related cases, and AI research tools

Open in FLexlaw