# Jones v. Bituminous Casualty Corp.

> Kentucky Supreme Court · December 19, 1991 · 821 S.W.2d 798

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9775024

## Case

- **Full name:** John JONES, Movant, v. BITUMINOUS CASUALTY CORPORATION, Huston Partin, Darrell Petry, Dean Petry, Ronnie Petry, Elmer Petry, Robert Petry, Clanis Partin, Michael Paul, Mitchell Powers, Glenous Lawson, Steve Randle, Rick Curnett, Larry Walker, Carl Mays, Lonnie Hamblin, S & J Mining Company, Respondents
- **Court:** Kentucky Supreme Court
- **Decided:** December 19, 1991
- **Citations:** 821 S.W.2d 798; 1991 Ky. LEXIS 199; 1991 WL 269780
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by Combs
- **Judges:** Lambert, Leibson, Reynolds, Spain, Wintersheimer, Stephens, Combs
- **Cited by:** 54 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9775024

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that “an insurer cannot withdraw coverage on the ground that a notice condition has not been met unless the insurer can show that it was prejudiced by the act of the insured”
- holding that an insurance company may not avoid payment of a claim based on late notice unless it was reasonably probable that the insurer suffered substantial prejudice
- reversing the trial court's grant of summary judgment and observing that "[sJummary judgment is appropriate on the issue of prejudice only where proof of prejudice is conclusive or there is failure of proof on the subject"

## Opinion text

COMBS, Justice,
dissenting.
I join in the dissenting opinion by the Chief Justice, and also dissent for the following additional reasons. I can identify with the plight of appellant and his family. My father was a coal miner and was killed in a slate fall in 1937. As a practicing attorney for almost a third of a century, I devoted a large percentage of my practice to coal miners and their dependents. But as a jurist I am bound by oath to support both the United States and Kentucky constitutions. Both constitutions prohibit the impairment of obligations assumed under contracts. Here the contract expressly provides as a condition precedent that there be timely notice of the claim. No convincing explanation or justification was given for the delay of more than six months. To ignore the contract provision would not only impair the obligations assumed thereunder but would in fact be rewriting the agreement.
STEPHENS, C.J., joins in this dissent.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9775024. Public record. Not legal advice.