David Davis

“ While it is correct practice for the judge to instruct in an absolute form on an admitted state of the case, he is not authorized to take from the jury the right of weighing the evidence bearing on controverted facts. Was it undisputed that Snyder had been attended 'for a severe fall on his head'? The court did not think so, for it instructed in these words: 'If the fall upon the head for which Monroe Snyder was attended by the physician was a severe one, the answer was untrue, and the verdict should be for the defendants.' The proposition of law was thus affirmed ”

“ It will be observed that the court is not asked to say to the jury that the attendance of a physician for a slight injury avoided the policy, nor was this the theory on which the case was tried. There was no evidence that Snyder was ever attended by a physician within twenty years, except when Dr. Stout visited him for a fall on the head. In the different points relating to other parts of the case, which were answered by the court to the satisfaction of the plaintiff in error, it was not the fact of the fall, but its severity, which was treated as being in avoidance of the policy. ”

“ The fourth point also proceeds on the same supposition. It asserts that Snyder was treated for a severe injury, and deduces from the nature of that injury the legal conclusion, that there can be no recovery. ”