Brown v. Standard Accident Insurance

THE COURT. By the terms of a policy of insurance plaintiff was insured by the defendant “against loss resulting from bodily injuries effected directly, exclusively and independently of all other causes through accidental means’’. At a time when such policy of insurance was in effect, from [637]an automobile accident plaintiff suffered a “bump” that “formed up here on top of . . . (his)' head”, which plaintiff claimed resulted in a paralysis as to certain muscles of his body, and on account of which he brought an action to recover damages from the defendant in accordance with the provisions of said insurance policy.

On the trial of the action, following the close of the introduction of evidence by the respective parties thereto, on motion of the defendant the trial court ordered a directed verdict by the jury. It is from the judgment that ensued from the return of such verdict that the instant appeal is taken.

Substantially the evidence presented by plaintiff, from a consideration of which appellant urges that he was entitled to have his case submitted to the jury, consisted of testimony given by a doctor at the trial of the action to the effect that paralysis sustained by plaintiff, and of which he complained, “was due to intra-cranial hemorrhage” that was caused by “traumatic injury to the head”.

A directed verdict is authorized “only when, disregarding conflicting evidence and giving to plaintiff's evidence all the value to which it is legally entitled, herein indulging in every legitimate inference which may be drawn from that evidence, the result is a determination that there is no evidence of sufficient substantiality to support a verdict in favor of the plaintiff if such a verdict were given.” (Estate of Flood, 217 Cal. 763, 768 [21 Pac. (2d) 579], and authorities there cited. See, also, Robbiano v. Bovet, 218 Cal. 589 [24 Pac. (2d) 466].) But the difficulty in the instant case, in attempting to give full effect to such rule, arises from a consideration of the fact that, as herein-before indicated, the policy of insurance upon which the right of action depended contained the provision in effect that the injury or damage that resulted to plaintiff must have arisen “from bodily injuries effected directly, exclusively and independently of all other causes through accidental means”. In that connection, and having the emphasized part of the policy of insurance in mind, the respondent has directed the attention of this court to the exact phraseology of the evidence given by the witness, both on his direct and on his cross-examination, as follows: