Adkins v. Columbia Life Ins. Co.

• Decision Date: 31 October 1879
• Citation: 70 Mo. 27
• Parties: ADKINS v. COLUMBIA LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY, Appellant.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

70 Mo. 27

ADKINS

v.COLUMBIA LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY, Appellant.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

October Term, 1879.

Appeal from Henry Circuit Court.--HON. FOSTER P. WRIGHT, Judge.

REVERSED.

Waldo P. Johnson for appellant.

F. E. Savage and W. L. Stewart for respondent.

HOUGH, J.

This was an action on a policy of insurance issued to the plaintiff on the life of her husband, Henry G. Adkins. It appears from the agreed statement on which this cause has been submitted, that said Adkin? committed suicide; “that at the time he committed suicide he was insane; that his mind was so far impaired that he did not understand the moral character, the general nature and consequences of the act; and that the act of self-destruction was the result of his insane condition of mind.” The policy sued on contains the following clause and exception, to-wit: “Provided, always, and it is hereby declared to be the true intent and meaning of this policy, and the same is accepted by the assured upon these express conditions: That in case of the death of said insured by his own act and intention, whether sane or insane, or by the use of intoxicating drinks, opiates or narcotics, it is expressly stipulated and agreed by all parties in interest that the company shall not be liable for the sum insured by said policy, but the company will pay, and the parties in interest will accept, in full discharge and satisfaction of said policy, a sum equal to the net value of this policy at the time of the death of said insured, computed on the American Table of Mortality, with interest at six per cent.” The defendant admitted it was liable for the net value of the policy at the time of the death of the insured, and tendered the same in court with costs, which was refused. The plaintiff recovered judgment for the full amount of the policy, and the defendant has appealed.

The rights of the parties depend upon the meaning to be attached to the words “in case of the death of said insured by his own act and intention, whether sane or insane,” contained in the clause of the policy above quoted.

In the leading case of Borradaile v Hunter, 5 Man. & Gr. 639, the words avoiding the policy were “in case the assured shall die by his own hands.” The court declared these words to be equivalent to the words “shall die by his own act,” and held that as the assured had intentionally destroyed himself, though he was at the time incapable of distinguishing between right and wrong, the policy was void. It appeared from the evidence in that case that Mr. Borradaile threw himself from the parapet of Vauxhall bridge into the river Thames and was drowned. Erskine, J., said the words of avoidance “were large enough to include all intentional acts of self-destruction whether criminal or not, if the deceased was laboring under no delusion as to the physical consequences of the act he was committing; if he knew that it was water into which he was about to throw himself, and that the consequence of his leaping from the bridge would be his death, and if he voluntarily threw himself from the bridge into the river, intending by so doing to drown himself, the question whether he had thereby been guilty of a crime as felo de se, or whether, if he had at that time destroyed the life of another instead of his own, he was in a state of mind to be morally and legally responsible for his acts, was irrelevant to the question before the jury; that the state of mind of the assured was only material for the purpose of ascertaining whether the act of self-destruction was a voluntary and willful act for the purpose of detroying his life.”

This decision was afterwards followed in Clift v. Schwabe, 3 Man., Gr. & Scott 438, and in Dufaur v. Professional Life Ins. Co., 25 Beav. 599. The rule thus established in England has been adopted in this country in the following cases: Dean v. Mutual Life Ins. Co., 4 Allen 96; Cooper v. Mass. Mutual Life Ins. Co., 102 Mass. 227; Nimick v. Mutual Benefit Life Ins. Co., 1 Big. Ins. Cas. 689; Gray v. Union Mutual Life Ins. Co., 2 Big. 4, and Van Zandt v. Mutual Benefit Life Ins. Co., 55 N. Y. 169. The case of American Life Ins. Co. v. Isetts, Admr., 74 Pa. St. 176, virtually supports the rule, but the case of Hartman v. Keystone Ins. Co., 21 Pa. St. 466, merely decides that if the insured committed suicide by swallowing poison, he died by his own hand. The rule is denied in Eastabrook v. Union Ins. Co., 54 Me. 224, and in Life Ins. Co. v. Terry, 15 Wall. 580. The case of Breasted v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co., 4 Sel. 899, has been cited by Justice Hunt in Life Ins. Co. v. Terry, as being in opposition to the rule laid down in Borrodaite v. Hunter, but it has been satisfactorily shown by the court of appeals of New York in Van Zandt v. M. B. Life Ins. Co., that there is no real conflict between those cases.

In the case of Life Ins. Co. v. Terry, the words of avoidance were, “shall die by his own hand,” and the court held that these words referred to an act of criminal self-destruction only, and not to the voluntary death of one who did not realize or understand the moral quality of his act. The court said: “If the death is caused by the voluntary act of the assured, he knowing and intending that his death shall be the result of his act, but when his reasoning faculties are so far impaired that he is not able to understand the moral character, the general nature, consequences and effect of the act he is about to commit, or when he is impelled thereto by an insane impulse which he has not the power to resist, such death is not within the contemplation of the parties to the contract, and the insurer is liable.”

The words, “by his own act and intention,” used in the policy before us, are equivalent to the words, “by his own hand,” and as to the meaning to be given these words, when standing by themselves, there is, as an examination of the cases cited will show, an irreconcilable conflict of opinion; those on one side maintaining that the policy would be avoided if the assured, at the time of causing his own death, was conscious...