A certificate of membership in a fraternal benefit association
providing benefits for accidental death exempts the association if
death occur "when" a member is "participating" in the
transportation of explosives. In this case, the assured, an officer
of a powder company, for the purpose of making delivery of a large
quantity of dynamite caps ordered by a customer, rode in the
customer's truck, driven by the customer's agent, from the
company's office to the company's magazine beyond the city limits,
where the goods were loaded on the vehicle. On the return trip to
the office, where the assured was to be let off, the truck, still
driven by the agent, was in collision with a train. There was
an
Page 291 U. S. 577
immediate explosion, the truck was destroyed, and the assured
was blown to pieces.
Held:
1. At the time of his death, the assured was "participating" in
the moving or transportation of the dynamite caps within the
meaning of the certificate, and there could be no recovery on the
certificate. P.
291 U. S.
579.
2. The assured was more than a voluntary guest on the vehicle;
he was a business "invitee." P.
291 U. S.
580.
3. To exempt the insurer, it was not necessary to find a causal
connection between the death and the forbidden act, since the
effect of that act was to aggravate the hazard in the very event
that happened. P.
291 U. S.
581.
65 F.2d 841 reversed.
Certiorari, 290 U.S. 618, to review & judgment reversing a
judgment for the Protective Association in a suit brought by the
beneficiary upon a certificate of membership.
MR. JUSTICE CARDOZO delivered the opinion of the Court.
James Prinsen, when he died, was a member of the petitioner, a
fraternal benefit association incorporated under the laws of
Missouri. By his certificate of membership, benefits in case of
death were payable to his wife, Uluetta Prinsen, the respondent in
this Court. The payment to be made to her in the event of death by
accident was $5,000, unless the accident occurred while the member
was engaged in enumerated activities. Death suffered in such
circumstances was excluded from the coverage. By the terms of the
certificate, the association was not to be liable if disability or
death occurred
"when a member is participating
Page 291 U. S. 578
. . . in the moving or transportation of gunpowder, dynamite, or
other explosive substance or substances. [
Footnote 1]"
At the time of his death, Prinsen was an officer of the Western
Powder Company, which had an office in Salt Lake City, Utah, and a
powder magazine outside the city limits. The Tintic Powder &
Supply Company gave an order to the Hercules Powder Company for
300,000 dynamite caps, and the Hercules Company asked the Western
Company to fill the order. The request was received by Prinsen, and
with it a notice that, within a few days, the Hercules
representative, Begaman, would come to Salt Lake City to accept
delivery. On February 3, 1931, Begaman appeared at the Western
office with a
Page 291 U. S. 579
motor truck in which he was to carry the explosives. He and
Prinsen then drove to the magazine beyond the city. The magazine
was opened with a key which Prinsen had brought with him, and
delivery of the caps was made by pilling them in boxes on the
truck. The two men then boarded the truck again to go back to the
Western office, Begaman driving the car and Prinsen sitting beside
him on the box. A small additional payment was made by Hercules to
Western for the trip to the magazine, but Tintic, not Hercules, was
the owner of the truck. On the way back, the truck was in collision
with an engine while crossing the tracks of the Denver & Rio
Grande Railroad. There was an immediate explosion in which the
truck was destroyed and Prinsen was blown to pieces. Begaman and
the railway engineer were killed at the same time.
The respondent brought suit on the membership certificate to
recover the benefits payable in the event of death by accident. The
association defended on the ground that the member was killed while
"
participating' in the transportation of explosives." In the
District Court a verdict was directed in favor of the defendant.
The Court of Appeals reversed, one judge dissenting. 65 F.2d 841.
This Court granted certiorari to resolve a possible conflict with
other federal decisions. Pittman v. Lamar Life Ins. Co.,
17 F.2d 370; Head v. New York Life Ins. Co., 43 F.2d
517.
We assume in favor of the respondent that "participation" in the
carriage of explosives imports something more than the presence of
the assured in the vehicle of carriage. One who becomes a passenger
in an aeroplane may thereby participate in aeronautics (
cf.
Head v. New York Life Insurance Co., supra; Bew v. Travelers' Ins.
Co., 95 N.J.Law, 533, 112 A. 859;
Pittman v. Lamar Life
Ins. Co., supra), but it does not follow that he participates
in the carriage of the mails, and this though the plane, to his
Page 291 U. S. 580
knowledge, is in part devoted to that use. One who travels in a
sleeping car does not participate thereby in the movement of
explosives, though information is brought home to him that, in a
baggage car forward, explosives are in transit. But Prinsen's
relation to this enterprise was not so remote or passive as the
relation of the passenger in the cases just supposed. He had gone
upon a truck which had been specially devoted by its owner to the
transportation of explosives, and had gone there for the very
purpose of making transportation possible. The respondent would
have us split into separate parts a transaction that is unitary in
aim and essence. Plainly the assured was facilitating the delivery
of explosives in traveling with Begaman to the suburban magazine.
Plainly he was still engaged in and about a like service when he
opened the magazine and placed the caps upon the truck. But his
participation in the errand did not end abruptly then and there.
The return journey to his office had the same motive and occasion
that induced the journey out. It was not an adventitious incident
that there were explosives in the truck when he left the magazine.
To the contrary, it was part of the plan from the beginning that
the truck should take him out, and then, when laden, take him back.
To say that he was riding on the truck "while" explosives were
transported is to state but half the case. The case is rather this
-- that he was riding on the truck "because" explosives were
transported. If he had not known in advance that this was the
substance to be carried, he would not have stirred out of his
office. There was a relation more intimate than contiguity in time
or space between his presence on the truck and the presence of the
explosive caps. The relation was no accident; it was preordained
and causal.
The respondent tells us that the assured at the time of the
collision was a voluntary guest, and makes much of
Page 291 U. S. 581
the label. The payment or nonpayment of a fare has little, if
any, bearing upon the problem to be solved, yet the label, unless
scrutinized, may have capacity to mislead. In his relation to this
enterprise, Prinsen was more than a voluntary guest. He was a
business "invitee," riding out and back at the invitation of the
owner because of a business interest common to them both.
Bennett v. Railroad Co., 102 U. S. 577,
102 U. S.
582-584;
Heskell v. Auburn L., H. & P. Co.,
209 N.Y. 86, 102 N.E. 540;
Haefeli v. Woodrich Engineering
Co., 255 N.Y. 442, 448, 175 N.E. 123;
Undermaur v.
Dames, L.R. 1 C.P. 274; American Law Institute, Restatement of
Torts, Tentative Draft, No. 4, ยงยง 202, 213. We may see the case
more clearly if we ask ourselves the question whether Begaman would
have been free to leave the "guest" at the magazine after delivery
of the caps, and refuse to bring him home. Plainly not, without
breach of duty to the Tintic Company, the employer, which had sent
the car out with instructions to the driver to carry Prinsen back.
The result is all one whether the instructions in respect of
carriage were tacit or express. By reasonable implication, the
return trip, as well as the outward one, was within the orbit of
the errand.
Cudahy Packing Co. v. Parramore, 263 U.
S. 418,
263 U. S. 426;
Bountiful Brick Co. v. Giles, 276 U.
S. 154,
276 U. S. 158;
Voehl v. Indemnity Ins. Co., 288 U.
S. 162.
The argument is made that a causal connection between the death
and the explosion is not a necessary inference from the facts in
evidence. The assured was blown to pieces; the fragments of his
body being so small that an autopsy was impossible. We are told
that, even so, the impact of the engine may have been fatal without
more. The contract does not say that the holder of the policy is to
have no claim against the insurer if he dies "by reason of" his
participation in the carriage of explosives. The contract says that
he is to have no claim
Page 291 U. S. 582
against the insurer if he dies "when" he is participating in the
carriage of explosives, just as it provides for a like result when
he is acting as a sailor or a soldier, or is participating in war
or riot, or is under the influence of narcotics or of intoxicating
liquors. [
Footnote 2] Courts of
high authority have held that, in policies so phrased, there is no
need of any causal nexus between the injury or death and the
forbidden forms of conduct. [
Footnote 3] While the proscribed activity continues, the
insurance is suspended as if it had never been in force. Other
courts prefer the view that, to work such a suspension, there must
have been an aggravation of the hazard to which death or injury was
owing. [
Footnote 4] In
Page 291 U. S. 583
that aspect, the insurer might be liable if the insured had
fallen from the box while asleep or inattentive; the dynamite caps
remaining unexploded in the truck. So policies excluding liability
while the assured is doing an act in violation of the law have been
read as directed to acts that aggravate the danger, with the result
that liability is unaffected by violation of the Sunday laws or of
the laws against profanity.
See the cases cited in
note 4 supra.
Insofar as these readings of the policy diverge, there is no
need to choose between them for the decision of the case at hand,
nor to search for a formula that may have capacity to reconcile
them. If the first meaning is accepted, the controversy ends. If
the second is accepted, it is still clear beyond debate that the
effect of the forbidden act was to magnify the risk of death in the
event of a collision, to aggravate the danger in the very event
that happened. Less than this may be required to relieve the
insurer of liability, but surely nothing more.
The good sense of this construction of the policy has
illustration in the case before us. At the very least, the
explosion was a concurrent cause of death, if not indeed the sole
one. The policy does not mean that, in the event of a proscribed
activity, there shall be a segregation of causes operating in
unison and a distribution of the consequences assignable to each.
One of the essential purposes to be served by the limitation of the
risk is to put an end to such a process of dissection and
comparison. By the form of its policy, the insurer has given notice
to assured and beneficiary that it will refuse to become entangled
in these mystifying subtleties. At the moment of the casualty, the
insurance was suspended by an aggravation of the hazard, and
suspended it remained till the forbidden hazard was removed.
Page 291 U. S. 584
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and that of
the District Court affirmed.
Reversed.
[
Footnote 1]
The full text of the exception follows:
"This Association shall not be liable to a member or his
beneficiary for any disability benefits, special loss benefits, or
death benefits when the disability, special loss, or death of a
member occurs under any of the following conditions or
circumstances: when inflicted by a member on himself, while sane or
insane; when there are no visible marks of injury upon the body
(the body itself not being deemed such a mark in case of death);
when or while a member is in any degree under the influence of
intoxicating liquor or liquors or of any narcotic or narcotics;
when caused wholly or in part by reason of or in consequence of the
use of intoxicating liquor or liquors or the use of any narcotic or
narcotics; when caused wholly or in part by any bodily or mental
infirmity or disease, dueling, fighting, or wrestling; when or
while a member is acting as a sailor or soldier or is participating
in war or riot; when or while a member is acting as an aviator or
balloonist or is participating in aerial navigation or aeronautics
of any kind either as a passenger, operator or assistant; when a
member is participating in public or agreed automobile racing, or
in wrecking, mining, blasting, or in the moving or transportation
of gunpowder, dynamite, or other explosive substance or substances;
when a member is murdered; when resulting from hazardous adventure
or an altercation or quarrel; when there is a disappearance of a
member; when the result of voluntary over-exertion (unless in a
humane effort to save a human life); when the result of voluntary
or unnecessary exposure to danger or to obvious risk of
injury."
[
Footnote 2]
A nice discrimination is maintained throughout the policy in
suit between causes of the casualty and aggravations of the hazard.
Thus, liability is excluded when the accident is "the result" of
voluntary overexertion, or "the result" of voluntary or unnecessary
exposure to danger, or when "caused" by any bodily or mental
infirmity or disease. There is no such insistence upon a causal
sequence when the insurer is participating in a war or a riot, or
in aeronautics or in the transportation of explosives.
[
Footnote 3]
Order of United Commercial Travelers of America v.
Greer, 43 F.2d 499;
Flannagan v. Provident Life &
Accident Ins. Co., 22 F.2d 136;
Murdie v. Maryland
Casualty Co., 52 F.2d 888;
Shader v. Railway Passenger
Ins. Co., 66 N.Y. 441;
Conner v. Union Automobile Ins.
Co., 122 Cal. App. 105, 9 P.2d 863;
Bradshaw v. Farmers'
& Bankers' Life Ins. Co., 107 Kan. 681, 193 P. 332;
Order of United Commercial Travelers v. Tripp, 63 F.2d 37;
cf. 281 U. S. S.
Fidelity & Guaranty Co. v. Guenther, 281 U. S.
34;
Matter of Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v.
Conway, 252 N.Y. 449, 452, 169 N.E. 642.
[
Footnote 4]
Matthes v. Imperial Accident Assn., 110 Iowa, 223, 81
N.W. 484;
Bradley v. Mutual Benefit Life Ins. Co., 45 N.Y.
422;
cf. Jones v. United States Mutual Accident Assn., 92
Iowa, 652, 61 N.W. 485;
Accident Ins. Co. v. Bennett, 90
Tenn. 258, 16 S.W. 723;
Murray v. New York Life Ins. Co.,
96 N.Y. 614;
Benham v. American Central Life Ins. Co., 140
Ark. 612, 217 S.W. 462;
Kelly v. Fidelity Mutual Life Ins.
Co., 169 Wis. 274, 276, 172 N.W. 152;
Bloom v. Franklin
Life Ins. Co., 97 Ind. 478;
Cluff v. M. B. Life Ins.
Co., 13 Allen 308.
MR. JUSTICE STONE, dissenting.
I think the judgment should be affirmed.
If "participation" means cooperation in the transportation more
than is involved in presence on the transporting vehicle, with the
knowledge that an explosive is being carried, I can perceive no
ground for saying that there was participation here. That deceased
had made the journey to deliver the caps and, as a "business
invitee," had a right to return on the vehicle on which he had
placed it, seems to me as irrelevant as though the deceased had
embarked as a passenger on a railroad train on which the explosion
occurred after he or his firm had shipped dynamite upon it. By the
terms of the policy, participation, to exclude liability, must be
at the time of the injury. After the return journey began, deceased
did nothing to facilitate the transportation. He neither controlled
nor had the right to control it. He was merely present. The
distinction drawn between this case and that of mere presence, so
difficult of statement and application, appears to me to obscure,
rather than to define, the meaning of the term, and to violate the
cardinal principle that, so far as their language reasonably
admits, insurance contracts are to be interpreted most favorably to
the insured.