Agen v. Metro. Life Ins. Co.

• Decision Date: 07 November 1899
• Citation: 105 Wis. 217,80 N.W. 1020
• Parties: AGEN v. METROPOLITAN LIFE INS. CO.
• Court: Wisconsin Supreme Court

105 Wis. 217

80 N.W. 1020

AGEN

v.METROPOLITAN LIFE INS. CO.

Supreme Court of Wisconsin.

Nov. 7, 1899.

Syllabus by the Judge.

1. In case of a death under such circumstances that it may or may not have been caused by suicide, the legal presumption is in favor of the latter, which should prevail in the absence of evidence sufficient to establish the former to a reasonable certainty.

2. It is the exclusive province of the court to determine whether evidence is susceptible of a reasonable inference that death was caused by some other means than that of suicide, and, that being determined in the affirmative, it is the exclusive province of the jury to determine where the truth lies.

3. The decision of the trial court that the evidence produced on a trial is susceptible of a reasonable inference warranting the verdict of the jury should not be disturbed unless, from an examination of the record, it clearly appears that such decision was erroneous.

4. In the circumstances stated in the foregoing, whether the jury properly drew the inference which resulted in their verdict, so long as such inference was within the limits of reasonableprobabilities, looking only to the evidence produced, is not a subject of inquiry on appeal; and in determining whether the trial court erred in deciding that the fact was reasonably inferable from such evidence, doubts are to be resolved in favor of such decision.

5. Where the reasonable probabilities from the evidence all point to suicide as the cause of death, so as to establish it, in the light of reason and common sense, with such certainty as to leave no room for reasonable controversy on the subject, a jury should not be permitted to find to the contrary and have such finding stand as a verity in the case, but the question should be decided by the trial court as one of law.

Appeal from superior court, Douglas county; C. Smith, Judge.

Action on a life insurance policy. The right to recover turned on whether the assured committed suicide. At the close of the evidence counsel for defendant moved the court for the direction of a verdict, which was denied. There was a general verdict for the plaintiff, and a motion made and denied to set the same aside because not warranted by the evidence and for other reasons. The appeal is from the judgment rendered on the verdict in plaintiff's favor. Reversed.

Winslow and Dodge, JJ., dissenting.

J. A. Murphy, for appellant.

Crownhart & Foley, for respondent.

MARSHALL, J.

As we view the record on this appeal, a decision of the question of whether the evidence warrants the verdict is all that is required. Such evidence is nearly all circumstantial. The undisputed facts are substantially as follows: The deceased, Clarence S. Griffin, at the time of his death, resided with his family, consisting of his wife and stepdaughter 4 1/2 years of age, in the second story of a dwelling house in the city of Superior, Wis., which was occupied on the first floor, partly by William Butler and family and partly by Louis Burgraff and family. The Griffin kitchen was in the front part of the house at the right of the front entrance. From it there was an outside door leading to a back stairway, the foot of which reached to about the location of the door of the Butler kitchen. There was also a door between the Griffin kitchen and their dining room back of such kitchen; also a door connecting such dining room with a bed room used by the family for sleeping apartments, such room being at the left of the dining room as the latter was approached from the kitchen. There was a commode near the bed-room door inside such room at the right of the entrance, in the drawer of which the deceased customarily kept a revolver when it was not on his person. He always placed it there evenings after his return from his day's labor, if he had carried it during the day. About 9:15 on the evening of December 14, 1894, the Griffin family all being at home, and the women occupants of the lower part of the house having retired for the night, footsteps were heard in the upper kitchen as of some person moving hurriedly across the floor. Immediately thereafter Mrs. Griffin left such kitchen by the back stairway, taking with her, or followed by, the little girl, and closed the door behind her. She ran quickly down such stairway, and in a nervous and excited manner rapped sharply at Mrs. Butler's kitchen door. About the time the circumstances just related were occurring, a person passed from the Griffin dining room into the bed room and there disturbed some furniture, creating a noise distinctly heard by those occupying the apartments below, then passed rapidly back from the bed room through the dining room into the kitchen and to the back door thereof, which he noisily opened and swung it back, apparently, so as to forcibly strike the wall, then crossed the room from the location of such door to a point near the door leading to the front hall, making a noise in his course something like that caused by turning over a chair, which was immediately followed by the report of a pistol in the room, then by a sound as if of a body falling on the floor, and then by human groans and a noise as of the beating of feet on the floor. The report of the pistol and the signal given by Mrs. Griffin of her presence at Mrs. Butler's door occurred at about the same instant. Mrs. Butler responded to such signal by opening her door. Mrs. Griffin, apparently much excited and frightened, inquired for milk for her little girl, then passed into Mrs. Butler's apartments, exclaiming almost immediately that she was afraid her husband had shot himself. She then cried and appeared to be in great mental distress. She made no further mention of desiring milk for the child, but clasped her hands, continued to cry, and again exclaimed, “He shot the revolver and I am afraid he has shot himself.” She did not go to her husband then or afterwards till some time the next day and after he had been removed to the hospital. No one was in the Griffin apartments but the deceased from the time Mrs. Griffin left them as related till about five minutes after the shot was heard, when several persons went there and discovered the following condition of things: The back entrance door to the kitchen was partly open, the dishes were on the table about as they were left at the last meal, a light was in the kitchen, and a chair was partly turned over on the floor. The commode drawers, or one of them, was pulled entirely or partly out. On the side of the room nearly opposite such back door, Griffin lay as if he had fallen backward against the wall, then slid down, leaving his head and shoulders against the wall, and his limbs nearly straight out on the floor towards the center of the room, with his hat on the floor between them. There was a bullet wound in the right side of his head a little above and about midway of a line drawn from the eye to the center of the ear. An upturned chair was a short distance away from him. His hands were by his side and he was moving them and his feet convulsively. His revolver was by him on the floor, partly under his legs and a little towards the left side, and near it was a revolver case in which it was customarily kept. There were no powder marks on the head. The revolver showed that it had been recently discharged. The man died the next day without having regained consciousness. A post mortem examination was made which revealed the following facts: The bullet passed into the head nearly at right angles with the side. It ranged slightly upward and lodged against the opposite table of the skull and was somewhat flattened. The inner table of the skull where the bullet entered was considerably fractured, pieces of it having been driven into the brain substance, which, on that side of the head, was much lacerated, disorganized and congested with blood. There was no evidence observed of powder, fire or smoke having been projected into the brain, nor any external indication of fire, smoke or powder. The evidence tended to show that the revolver, when discharged, must have been held at least eight inches from the head to account for the absence of discoloration on the surface in the vicinity of the wound, or that it was held firmly against the head. The latter situation at the time the pistol was discharged, while it would account for absence of external evidence, would suggest the presence of internal evidence of fire, powder and smoke having been forced into the brain; but, as before stated, no such evidence was discovered. The man did not die till about 20 hours after he received the wound, and the autopsy was not made till some time after death. The brain substance was very badly lacerated, disorganized and discolored by blood, so as to account, in a measure, for the absence of discoloration by smoke, powder or fire, and of any other evidence of the presence of any foreign substance in the brain, except the bullet and pieces of bone carried in by it, other than the general disorganized condition of the brain substance on the side of the head where such ball entered. There was evidence of experts to the effect that if a pistol be discharged with the muzzle pressed firmly against the head, there may be no evidence of fire, powder or smoke, externally or internally. There was also expert evidence to the contrary, some of it by persons who had never seen such a case. There was evidence of a person to the effect that he had seen just such an occurrence, and that there was no external evidence of fire, powder or smoke. There was also evidence of actual tests made with the revolver which caused the death of Griffin, showing that a shot from it would burn cotton batting but slightly if at all more than three or four inches away, but would produce powder marks on tissue paper 12 or 14 inches away. There was no evidence to create even a suspicion that any human agency was concerned in firing the shot which...