Opinion

Fruchter v. Aetna Life Insurance

  • 266 So. 2d 61
  • 1972 Fla. App. LEXIS 6236
Court
District Court of Appeal of Florida
Filed
Aug 29, 1972
Status
Published
Author
Pearson
On the bench
Barkdull, Carroll, Pearson
Cited by
9 cases
Authority
More cited than 25.1%

The opinion

PEARSON, Judge

(dissenting).

The instruction given by the trial court was Florida Standard Jury Instruction Number 3.7. The instruction requested by the appellant was as follows:

“In an action for disability benefits under an insurance policy such as we have in this case, the insurance company has the burden of establishing by the greater weight of the evidence that the insured was and is able to engage in an occupation for remuneration or profit and that total disability within the insurance policy had ceased.”

The court did not, in my view, commit reversible error when it denied the requested instruction which reads as though the initial burden of proof was upon the defendant. The law as established in New York Life Ins. Co. v. Lecks, 122 Fla. 127 , 165 So. 50 (1935), and Mutual Life Ins. Co. of New York v. Ewing, 151 Fla. 661 , 10 So.2d 316 (1942), could well have been the basis for a proper instruction upon a presumption arising from facts established.

This is a copy of a public record, reproduced as it was published. It is not legal advice, and it may not be the version a court would rely on. Check the official source before you cite it.

A word about cookies

We need a few to keep you signed in and the library working. The rest help us see which pages people use and where they get stuck. They stay off unless you say yes.