AETNA LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY, APPELLANT,
v.
GLENDA S. SIEVERT, APPELLEE

Fla. 1st DCA | 1978-06-09
No. GG-52
McCORD, C. J., and MELVIN, J., concur., McCORD, C. J., and MELVIN, J., concur.
361 So. 2d 747 Florida District Court of Appeal, First District (1978) Negative Treatment
Cited by 26 cases

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Synopsis

Aetna Life Insurance Company appealed a jury verdict in favor of Glenda Sievert in a life insurance dispute. The appellate court affirmed the jury verdict on the merits but reversed the award of attorney's fees and certain costs.


Holding

The trial court properly denied the motion for directed verdict and motion for new trial because questions regarding misrepresentations on insurance applications are for the jury to resolve. However, Sievert was not entitled to attorney's fees because she was neither the contracting insured, the insured's estate, a named beneficiary, nor an assignee. Additionally, certain costs were improperly taxed because the hospital records were not admitted in evidence, the deposition copy was not used at trial, and counsel's travel expenses to Virginia were not properly taxable.


Headnotes

[1] A verdict should be directed only when the evidence would not be legally sufficient to sustain a verdict.

[2] Representations made by an insured on an insurance application present questions of fact to be resolved by a jury.

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Key Quotes

“A verdict should be directed only when the evidence would not be legally sufficient to sustain a verdict and that is not the case here.”

Establishes the standard for when a directed verdict is proper and why Aetna's motion was correctly denied.

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Facts & Procedural History

Sievert's deceased husband applied for group credit life insurance. Aetna alleged that the insured made material misrepresentations and omissions on t…

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Opinion of the Court
BOYER, Judge.

BOYER, Judge.

Aetna appeals a final judgment entered by the trial court pursuant to a jury verdict for appellee. It contends, first, that the lower court erred in denying its motion for directed verdict at the conclusion of the evidence. We do not agree. A verdict should be directed only when the evidence would not be legally sufficient to sustain a verdict and that is not the case here.

Secondly, Aetna contends that the court erred in denying its motion for new trial on the grounds that the verdict was contrary to the manifest weight of the evidence. Its basic argument is that there was compelling evidence that appellee’s deceased husband had made material misrepresentations and omissions on his application for group credit life coverage.

We find this point to be without merit. The general rule in Florida is that representations made by an insured on an insurance application present questions of fact to be resolved by a jury. Underwriters National Assurance Co. v. Harrison, 338 So. 2d 58 (Fla. 3d DCA 1976); Hyman v. Life Insurance Co. of North America, 481 F. 2d 441 (5th Cir. 1973).

Aetna also contends that attorney’s fees should not have been awarded to appellee. That point has recently been resolved in Aetna’s favor by Roberts v. Carter, 350 So. 2d 78 (Fla.1977). Appellee is not the contracting insured, the insured’s estate, a specifically named policy beneficiary nor an assignee of the policy; therefore she cannot recover an attorney’s fee under Section 627.428(1), Florida Statutes (1975). Neither may she prevail on her theory of third party beneficiary. Phoenix Insurance Co. v. Helton, 298 So. 2d 177 (Fla. 1st DCA 1974), cert. dis., 330 So. 2d 724 (Fla.1976). Furthermore, it does not appear that the policy was delivered in this state. (See F.S. 627.401) The provision for $9,000.00 fees is therefore deleted from the Final Judgment.

Finally, Aetna contends that certain of Appellee’s costs were not properly taxed. Included in the taxed costs were expenses in obtaining hospital records, a copy of a deposition and over $250.00 for transportation of counsel to attend the deposition of Dr. Davis, the neighborhood doctor who had at the time of the trial moved to Virginia. Aetna urges that those items should not have been allowed.

We agree. The hospital records were not admitted into evidence and no necessity for them was demonstrated. The copy of the deposition was neither entered into evidence nor used at the trial for impeachment nor otherwise. (See Horner v. Red Top Cab & Baggage Co., 37 So. 2d 160 (Fla.1948)) Neither was the taxation of counsel’s expenses for traveling to Virginia for the purpose of deposition proper. The taxation of costs is hereby reduced to $102.19.

Affirmed in part and reversed in part.

McCORD, C. J., and MELVIN, J., concur.

Other

Appellee contends that we apparently overlooked Travelers Insurance Company v. Tallahassee Bank and Trust Company, 133 So. 2d 463 (Fla. 1st D.C.A. 1961), cert. denied 138 So. 2d 332 (Fla. 1962), and All Ways Reliable Building Maintenance, Inc. v. Moore, 261 So. 2d 131 (Fla.1972), both cited with approval in Roberts v. Carter, 350 So. 2d 78 (Fla.1977), in reversing the award of her attorney’s fees. We have not overlooked those cases. We feel, however, that the Supreme Court meant what it said in Roberts, i.e., that an award of attorney’s fees under Section 627.428, Florida Statutes, is available only to “the contracting insured, the insured’s estate, specifically named policy beneficiaries and third parties who claim policy coverage by assignment from the insured.”

Appellee also contends that we overlooked Section 627.402 Florida Statutes (1977) in finding that the subject policy was not delivered in this state. Although subsection (1) of that section does indicate that delivery of a certificate is equivalent to delivery of the policy, Section 627.402 (2) indicates just as clearly that delivery of a certificate is not delivery of the policy for group insurance contracts such as the one here involved. Nor do we have the situation presented in Blue Cross of Florida, Inc. v. Turner, Fla.App., 363 So. 2d 133 (1978) in which a copy of the master policy had been provided to a Florida corporation for the purpose of administering the plan in this state. In addition, it does not appear that a group credit life insurance policy of the amount involved would have been permitted under statutory limitations in effect in this state at the time of the issuance of the policy. See Section 627.679, Florida Statutes (1973).

The Petition for Rehearing is denied.

McCORD, C. J., and MELVIN, J., concur.


Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus


Citator

Cited By (13 total)

  • …1968); Mullis v. State Farm Mutual Auto. Ins. Co., 252 So. 2d 229 (Fla.1971). In each of these cases, incidentally, attorney’s fees were recovered by the successful additional or omnibus insured. . To the extent that Aetna Life Ins. Co. v. Sievert, 361 So. 2d 747 (Fla. 1st DCA 1978) and Aetna Life & Casualty Co. v. Stanger, 367 So. 2d 728 (Fla. 4th DCA 1979), express contrary views, we simply do not follow those decisions. We venture to suggest that these cases may be in direct conflict with Roberts itself,…
  • Indus. Fire & Cas. Ins. Co. v. Prygrocki, 422 So. 2d 314 (Fla. 1982)
    …ied attorney’s fees); Fernandez; Aetna Life & Casualty Co. v. Stanger, 367 So. 2d 728 (Fla. 4th DCA 1979) (denying attorney’s fees to an insured under an uninsured motorist policy because not the contracting insured); Aetna Life Ins. Co. v. Sievert, 361 So. 2d 747 (Fla. 1st DCA 1978) (wife insured under deceased husband’s policy denied attorney’s fees). Other district courts, however, have not followed a literal interpretation of the Roberts language, and have awarded attorney’s fees to persons insured under…
  • Wellington E. Beneby v. Midland Nat'l Life Ins. Co., 402 So. 2d 1193 (Fla. 3d DCA 1981)
    …that summary judgment was improvidently issued. The general rule is that factual issues pertaining to misrepresentations on an application for insurance are properly within the province of the trier of fact. Aetna Life Insurance Company v. Sievert, 361 So. 2d 747 (Fla. 1st DCA 1978); Underwriters National Assurance Company v. Harrison, 338 So. 2d 58 (Fla. 3d DCA 1976). This case is similar to the factual pattern presented in Travelers Insurance Company v. Zimmerman, 309 So. 2d 569 (Fla. 3d DCA 1975) where we…

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Authorities Cited (11 total)

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