Samuel Freeman Miller,
Piedmont and Arlington Life-Insurance Company v…
“ How can a man who has lived forty or fifty years prove that he never had dyspepsia or a diarrhoea, or any disease of the heart or bowels? and how can he prove that his habits of life have always been correct, and that he never drank ardent spirits to the extent of intemperance? ”
Samuel Freeman Miller,
Piedmont and Arlington Life-Insurance Company v…
“ The number of the questions now asked of the assured in every application for a policy, and the variety of subjects, and length of time which they cover, are such, that it may be safely said that no sane man would ever take a policy if proof to the satisfaction of a jury of the truth of every answer were made known to him to be an indispensable prerequisite to payment of the sum secured, that proof to be made only after he was dead, and could render no assistance in furnishing it. ”
Samuel Freeman Miller,
Piedmont and Arlington Life-Insurance Company v…
“ On the other hand, it is no hardship, that, if the insurer knows or believes any of these statements to be false, he shall furnish the evidence on which that knowledge or belief rests. He can thus single out the answer whose truth he proposes to contest; and, if he has any reasonable grounds to make such an issue, he can show the facts on which it is founded.The judge of the Circuit Court was, therefore, right in refusing to instruct the jury, that the burden of proving the truth of these answers rested with the plaintiff below. ”
