By the terms of a policy an accident insurance company undertook, if, at any time during the continuance of the said policy, the insured should sustain any bodily injury caused by violent, accidental, external, and visible means, then, in case such injury should, within three calendar months from the occurrence of the accident causing such injury, directly cause the death of the insured, to pay to the legal personal representatives of the insured the capital sum of 1000l. The policy contained the following proviso: ‘Provided always and it is hereby as the essence of the contract agreed as follows: that this policy only insures against death where accident within the meaning of the policy is the direct or proximate cause thereof, but not where the direct or proximate cause thereof is disease or other intervening cause, even although the disease or other intervening cause may itself have been aggravated by such accident, or have been due to weakness or exhaustion consequent thereon, or the death accelerated thereby.’
The assured, while hunting, had a heavy fall, and, the ground being very wet, he was wetted to the skin. The effect of the shock and the wetting was to lower the vitality of his system, and being obliged to ride home afterwards, while wet, still further lowered his vitality. The effect of this lowering of his vitality was to cause the subsequent development of pneumonia in his lungs, of which he died. The pneumonia was not septic or traumatic, but arose as a direct and natural consequence from the fact that the diminution of vitality caused through the accident, as above mentioned, allowed the germs called ‘pneumococci,’ which in small numbers are generally present in the respiratory passages, to multiply greatly and attack the lungs.
Held: affirming the judgment of Channell J., that the death of the assured was directly caused by accident within the meaning of the
policy, and that the case did not come within the proviso therein, and the company were consequently liable on the policy.
[1909] 1 KB 591, [1909] UKLawRpKQB 37
Commonlii
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Navigators Insurance Company Ltd and Others v Atlasnavios-Navegacao Lda SC 22-May-2018
The vessel had been taken by the authorities in Venezuela after drugs were found to have been attached to its hull by third parties. Six months later it was declared a constructive total loss. The ship owners now sought recovery of its value from . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 26 July 2021; Ref: scu.666173 br>