KALINADHABATLA SUSILA DEVI Vs. THE ORIENTAL GOVERNMENT SECURITY, LIFE ASSURANCE COMPANY LIMITED BY ITS MANAGER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE husband of the appellant sent in a proposal for an insurance policy to the respondent company, the Oriental Government Security Life Assurance Co., Ltd., Bombay. It is not alleged that there was anything untrue or incomplete in the form filled up by the applicant; but just before the proposal was accepted in the Bombay office, the appellant's husband contracted a chill after playing tennis and his temperature immediately began to rise. During the course of the next few days his temperature rose to 1050 ; and on the 7th day (12th February, 1937) his temperature dropped to normal. After remaining at almost normal for about three days, it began to rise again ; and throughout the month he had temperatures ranging from 99 ° to 101 ° ; which led his Doctor, D.W. 1, to come to the conclusion that there was something wrong with the applicant which needed further investigation. He then found that there was a patch of infection on the base of the lung of the applicant. The temperature did not drop ; and so the applicant left the village for a sanatorium in Mysore, where he subsequently died of Tuberculosis, which had presumably been existing for a considerable time before his death. While receiving attention from D.W. 1 after his high temperature between the 6th and the 12th had subsided and his temperature had begun to rise again, he received a letter of acceptance from the Insurance Company, forwarded to him from the Vizagapatam office. In that letter of acceptance there was this note:

(2.) I have no doubt that there was a warranty of continued good health upto the date when the policy was issued on the 24th of February, 1937. It was on the basis of the applicant's representations that the policy was issued. He was particularly asked questions with regard to his health, and on the basis of the answers given to the various questions the policy was issued. In Halsbury's Laws of England, Volume 18, Article 386, a warranty is defined inter alia as a statement by the assured which affirms or negatives the existence of a particular state of facts, the fact in the present case being that he was in a sound state of health. In the same volume, it is pointed out that:

(3.) THE other case relied on is Mutual Life Insurance Co. of New York v. Ontario Metal Products Co., (1925) A.C. 344 where it was laid down that: