Justice

This is an appeal by the defendant from a judgment in favor of the plaintiff in an action on a policy of accident insurance, insuring plaintiff’s deceased husband “against death or disability resulting directly, independently, and exclusively of all other causes from bodily injuries effected solely through external, violent and accidental means”. In appellant’s opening brief it is said: “The question in this case is as to whether Mr. Justice died from the result of an alleged skull fracture sustained in the accident or whether he died from a stroke of apoplexy.” This statement is not quite accurate, because, even though the immediate cause of death may have been apoplexy, if the apoplexy itself was caused by the injuries received in the accident, then it would follow that such injuries were the proximate cause of the death.

The evidence shows that the deceased, who was of the age of sixty-five years and weighed two hundred pounds, had driven a Ford automobile for about seven years, but that on the day of the accident he was driving an Oakland coupe, that being the second time only that he had driven that make of automobile. A witness for the plaintiff testified that on the day of…