Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 48).pdf/323

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PLOTNER v. NORTHWESTERN NAT. LIFE INS. CO.
299

plaintiff all premiums paid thereunder? Answer: Yes, after death of applicant.

The appellant assigns the following errors:

(1) The court erred in overruling defendant’s objections to the admission in evidence of the testimony of the plaintiff and various other lay witnesses, tending to show that from their observations the insured was apparently enjoying good health in the summer of 1919.

(2) The court erred in denying defendant’s motion for a directed verdict, made at the close of the testimony upon all the grounds and for all the reasons stated in said motion.

(3) The court erred in denying defendant’s motion, made on December 28, 1920, on the minutes of the court, for judgment non obstante or for a new trial, based upon specifications of error served with notice of such motion.

(4) The court erred in overruling defendant’s objection to the following question asked plaintiff: “Did you yourself have anything to do with the preparation of Exhibit E at all?”

The court erred in overruling defendant’s objections to the following questions : “Q. I will ask you, Mr. Plotner, before you signed and delivered to the defendant company Exhibit F, you read or had read to you No. 13 thereof ?” which is as follows: “When did you first notice or learn of any symptoms of failing health in deceased? In other words, before you signed that, was that specific question read by or to you?” Also: “And in answer to that question did you state to the party who wrote the answer therein, ‘About a year’ ?”

It will not be necessary to set out a statement of the material facts, as they sufficiently appear from the special verdict. The assignments of error are so interrelated that a separate analysis of each is unnecessary, and hence all will be considered under a general discussion of the legal questions presented, which naturally arrange themselves in three groups, to wit: (1) Those relating to the reception or exclusion of evidence; (2) those relating to alleged fraud or deception, by Amelia Victoria Plotner, in procuring the policy of insurance to be issued; (3) those relating to the rulings of the court in denying defendant’s motion for a directed verdict, and for judgment non obstante or for a new trial.

The defendant complains of the admission of certain evidence, given by several lay witnesses, in support of plaintiff’s cause of action, which related to the state of health of the insured at the time she signed the ap-