{
  "id": 8655215,
  "name": "W. B. MOORE v. GENERAL ACCIDENT, FIRE AND LIGHT INSURANCE CORPORATION",
  "name_abbreviation": "Moore v. General Accident, Fire & Light Insurance",
  "decision_date": "1912-03-06",
  "docket_number": "",
  "first_page": "305",
  "last_page": "307",
  "citations": [
    {
      "type": "official",
      "cite": "158 N.C. 305"
    }
  ],
  "court": {
    "name_abbreviation": "N.C.",
    "id": 9292,
    "name": "Supreme Court of North Carolina"
  },
  "jurisdiction": {
    "id": 5,
    "name_long": "North Carolina",
    "name": "N.C."
  },
  "cites_to": [],
  "analysis": {
    "cardinality": 322,
    "char_count": 5251,
    "ocr_confidence": 0.441,
    "pagerank": {
      "raw": 6.848989183728895e-08,
      "percentile": 0.4175903691682411
    },
    "sha256": "c71bffca751238d3b1d6217b5a1df6eb4c9d576fc8c11d48e8decf5859db2473",
    "simhash": "1:2cd1a528139e6e5f",
    "word_count": 873
  },
  "last_updated": "2023-07-14T16:45:05.014249+00:00",
  "provenance": {
    "date_added": "2019-08-29",
    "source": "Harvard",
    "batch": "2018"
  },
  "casebody": {
    "judges": [],
    "parties": [
      "W. B. MOORE v. GENERAL ACCIDENT, FIRE AND LIGHT INSURANCE CORPORATION."
    ],
    "opinions": [
      {
        "text": "Olakb:, C. J.\nThe plaintiff, an illiterate man, took out an accident policy of insurance in the \u2022 defendant company. On the first page thereof, in large type, defendant insured the plaintiff \u201cat tbe rate of $50 per month, for a period not exceeding twenty-four consecutive months, against total loss of time resulting directly and independently of all other causes from bodily injuries effected through external, violent, and accidental means, and which wholly and continuously, from the date of the accident, disable and prevent the assured from performing every duty pertaining to any business or occupation.\u201d And further, on the same page, the policy undertook to pay double indemnity \u201cif such injuries are sustained by the assured while riding as a passenger within the inclosed part of any railroad passenger car provided for the exclusive use of passengers and propell\u00e9d by steam.\u201d\nIn December, 1908, the plaintiff was seriously injured while a passenger on a railroad. The first issue was in the exact language of the first quotation from the policy above set out, to which the jury responded \u201cYes.\u201d\nThe defendant' claimed that the plaintiff had received $20 in full compromise and settlement of said injuries, to which the jury responded \u201cNo.\u201d\nThe defendant further relied upon a provision inside the policy as follows: \u201cIn the event of disability due to either 'accident or illness caused by or resulting wholly or in part, directly or indirectly, in tuberculosis, rheumatism, paralysis, apoplexy, orchitis, neuritis, locomotor ataxia, lumbago, lame back, strains, sciatica, vaccination, Bright\u2019s disease, dementia, insanity, hernia . . . the limit of the company\u2019s liability shall be an indemnity for the period disabled, not exceeding four weeks in any one year, at the rate which would otherwise be payable under this policy, anything herein to the contrary notwithstanding.\u201d The defendant pleads that the plaintiff suffered with paralysis which was produced by his injury, and therefore it is liable to the plaintiff only in a sum not exceeding that which would otherwise be due for a disability not exceeding four weeks in any one year. This paragraph, if construed as the defendant claims, is in direct contradiction of the terms and purpose of the insurance as stated in the first quotation above given from the front page of the policy.\nWe do not think that this would be a just construction. Here the paralysis is a direct incident and a part of the \u201cbodily injury effected through external, violent, or accidental means,\u201d and to hold that in such case the insurance is reduced to a very small part of the sum stipulated for would be in effect to destroy the insurance. To say that such was the intent of the defendant company in executing the policy would be to charge it with fraud. The only reasonable and just construction is that when an accident or illness is the ultimate cause of paralysis or of one of the other diseases named, which diseases accrue at a more or less remote period of time after the injury, then the liability of the insurance company is reduced to compensation for' disability not exceeding four weeks in any one year, and the same reduction could be claimed when one of those excepted diseases cause the injury.\nThe jury found that the plaintiff had complied with every condition in his policy; that the statements made in his application for insurance were true, and that though the plaintiff had received $20 from the defendant, that there had not been a valid and full compromise for the injuries sustained; that the plaintiff\u2019s cause of action accrued prior to the institution of this action, and that the plaintiff was entitled to recover $2,380, with interest \u2014 that is, indemnity at the rate of $100 per month for twenty-four months, less $20 received.\nWe have examined all the exceptions in the record carefully, but excepting the propositions of law above discussed, the case was almost entirely dependent upon the disputed matters of fact which the jury have found in favor of the plaintiff, under a correct charge as to the law.\nNo error.",
        "type": "majority",
        "author": "Olakb:, C. J."
      }
    ],
    "attorneys": [
      "F. S. Spruill for plaintiff.",
      "Brooks & Taylor for defendant."
    ],
    "corrections": "",
    "head_matter": "W. B. MOORE v. GENERAL ACCIDENT, FIRE AND LIGHT INSURANCE CORPORATION.\n(Filed 6 March, 1912.)\nInsurance, Accident \u2014 Policy Contract \u2014 Limitation of Liability \u2014 Diseases \u2014 Interpretation of Policy.\nWhen an accident insurance contract provides for the payment of a loss for an injury received while riding on a railway passenger coach, and on the second page of the policy there is a provision limiting the liability of the insurer if the disability is due to an accident caused by or resulting from paralysis and certain other diseases, it is construed to mean that when an accident, is the ultimate cause of paralysis, or of one of the other diseases named, which accrues at a more or less remote period of time after the injury has been received, the liability of the insurer is limited by the provision, but not when the paralysis, etc., is a direct incident and a part of the injury effected through the accident insured against.\nAppeal by defendant from Ferguson, J., at November Term, 1911, of Nash.\nThe facts are sufficiently stated in tbe opinion of the Court by Mr. Chief Justice Clark.\nF. S. Spruill for plaintiff.\nBrooks & Taylor for defendant."
  },
  "file_name": "0305-01",
  "first_page_order": 349,
  "last_page_order": 351
}