Legg v. Mutual Benefit Health & Accident Ass'n

ASHBURN, J.

Plaintiff-appellant appears in propria persona upon appeal from a judgment of dismissal entered pursuant to an order sustaining without leave to amend defendants’ demurrer to her third amended complaint. Appellant has managed to make the appeal a difficult one for the court because her briefs, like the complaint, consist of sentences almost devoid of syntax, composed of words without definitive meaning, used in an effort to express confused cross-currents of thought.

1

The complaint is in three counts, each of which is baffling.

First Count. Conversion of an insurance policy (Lifetime Income Protection Contract of Insurance No. NS-349684-44, Policy Form 104NS) issued to her by defendant Mutual Benefit Health and Accident Association on November 7, 1944. The policy was executed in duplicate and the original kept by the company with duplicate delivered to plaintiff. She was injured on February 6, 1948, and permanently disabled. The company paid her $100 for one month’s benefit and on January 7, 1954, advised her that it had “converted” her contract “into a different kind of contract for its own use.” On this basis plaintiff alleges that defendant “seized and converted” the contract and “stole and disposed of said property,” to plaintiff’s damage in the amount of $60,000 “ensueing in indemnity accruements.” The charge of conversion seems to be a play upon words. The complaint contains a copy of the policy which appellant’s brief says was attached in the process of amendment. Nowhere does it appear that the duplicate policy ever left plaintiff’s hands. In the second count plain

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tiff says that defendant on said January 7, 1954, advised her that no part of her premiums had been “processed” to this policy 104NS. In the third count it appears that plaintiff had two policies. Hence it

seems

that the alleged conversion consisted of a claim that premiums on policy 104NS had not been paid and for some reason and in some manner the policy had been “converted” into a different form.

The demurrer is not in the record before us, but appellant’s brief says it was general and special. Certainly a specification of uncertainty in the allegation of wrongful conversion would lie. Both sides agree that the trial judge, in making the ruling under review, relied upon