McAllister v. Century Indemnity Co. of Hartford
McAllister v. Century Indemnity Co. of Hartford
Opinion of the Court
The judgment is affirmed for the reasons expressed in the opinion of Judge Bigelow in the court below.
Dissenting Opinion
(dissenting). It is unfortunate that respondent has pinned his hopes upon an insurance contract which appellant itself acknowledges is characterized by “intricacy of composition, complexity of paragraph cross-reference, excessive verbiage and iteration, unhappy selection of a word to describe more than one thing where perhaps several words would have been better”; and it is to be hoped that appellant will soon revise the form of its policy, as its counsel on the oral argument told the court appellant would do regardless of the outcome of this litigation, in order to eliminate the justly criticized obscurities in the relationship of the various clauses to each other. I agree with appellant, however, that obscurity and intricacy of arrangement do not, even in combination with the presumption against the insurer as the draftsman, amount to ambiguity in this case, and I believe that we are not at liberty to discount the plain meaning which a close reading of the whole contract reveals. The insured bought coverage under “Division 1,” defined as “including accidents (except acci
I would therefore reverse the judgment.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- JOHN L. McALLISTER, PLAINTIFF-RESPONDENT, v. THE CENTURY INDEMNITY COMPANY OF HARTFORD, CONN., DEFENDANT-APPELLANT
- Cited By
- 17 cases
- Status
- Published