## Facts

- Derwood Wooley was a 54-year-old farmer who also raised chickens; he was a high-school graduate.
- Over the years Wooley had also worked as a carpenter, truck driver, and equipment operator on construction jobs.
- Wooley purchased a health and accident insurance policy from Prudence Life Insurance Company that provided benefits for “total disability.”
- The policy defined total disability as the complete inability of the insured to engage (1) in his regular occupation or (2) in an occupation he could do according to his education, training, or experience.
- About a year after buying the policy, Wooley suffered a heart attack.
- Prudence paid disability benefits for roughly two years, then stopped paying on the ground that Wooley was not totally disabled under the policy definition.
- Prudence also exercised an option to decline to renew the policy, asserting Wooley was not totally disabled but had ceased to be active in his business.
- Wooley sued for unpaid benefits and claimed Prudence owed him $5,260 as of the time of trial.
- At trial, the evidence supported a finding that Wooley could no longer perform the work of his farming and chicken-producing business.
- The evidence also supported a finding that Wooley could perform other work consistent with his background and prior jobs.
- The trial court instructed the jury that Wooley was totally disabled if he was prevented from working in his business; the court refused Prudence’s requested instruction directing the jury to consider whether Wooley could work in another occupation fitting his education, training, or experience.
- The jury returned a verdict for Wooley.

## Issues

1. Whether the trial court committed reversible error by instructing the jury that Wooley was totally disabled if he could not work in his farming/chicken business, without also requiring the jury to consider the policy’s alternative-occupation language.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Mississippi held the instruction was erroneous because it did not match the policy’s definition of total disability.
- The court found the error prejudicial because there was evidence Wooley could work in other occupations consistent with his education, training, or experience.
- The judgment for Wooley was reversed, and the case was remanded for a new trial with proper instructions.

## Legal Principles

- When an insurance policy defines total disability to include inability to perform the insured’s regular occupation and also inability to perform another occupation suited to the insured by education, training, or experience, the factfinder must be instructed on the full definition.
- A jury instruction that reduces a policy’s total-disability standard to inability to do the insured’s usual work materially changes the contractual test and is reversible error when the evidence supports a different result under the correct test.
- In disability-benefit disputes, the policy language controls the elements the plaintiff must prove; instructions must reflect those elements so the jury can decide the disputed factual questions under the contract’s terms.

## Conclusion

Because the policy required the jury to consider not only whether Wooley could continue his farming and chicken business but also whether he could perform another occupation fitting his education, training, or experience, the trial court’s “own business only” instruction misstated the governing contract standard; given evidence that Wooley could do other work, the Mississippi Supreme Court reversed and remanded for a new trial with correct instructions.


Prudence Life Insurance Co. v. Wooley, 182 So. 2d 393 (1966)