Baxter v. Covenant Mutual Life Association
| Decision Date | 24 July 1900 |
| Docket Number | 12,126 - (217) [2] |
| Citation | 83 N.W. 459,81 Minn. 1 |
| Parties | MARY E. BAXTER v. COVENANT MUTUAL LIFE ASSOCIATION |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Action in the district court for Hennepin county to recover $2,500 on a life insurance policy. The case was tried before Pond J., and a jury, which rendered a verdict in favor of plaintiff. From an order granting a motion for judgment in favor of defendant notwithstanding the verdict, plaintiff appealed. Affirmed.
Life Insurance -- Verdict -- Evidence.
In an action by the beneficiary to recover upon a life insurance policy, evidence as to the death of the insured examined, and held, that the trial court was justified in granting defendant's motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict.
F. D Larrabee, for appellant.
L. W. Gammons, for respondent.
On the former appeal of this case (77 Minn. 80, 79 N.W. 596) a new trial was ordered upon the ground that the evidence was manifestly and palpably against the verdict of $2,500 returned in favor of plaintiff. Thereupon a new trial was had, and at the close of the evidence defendant moved that the court instruct the jury to return a verdict for the defendant. This was denied, and plaintiff again secured a verdict for $2,500. Thereupon defendant moved for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, which motion the court granted, and plaintiff appeals.
The evidence upon the former trial was fully analyzed in the opinion on the former appeal, and we will not review it at this time. The court unquestionably was correct in granting a new trial on the evidence at that time, and the plaintiff's evidence on the second trial was substantially the same. In addition to that, there was strong evidence on the second trial, which was lacking on the first, to the effect that John A. Baxter was alive and well. The substance of the cause of action was that the plaintiff's husband was dead. The only proof she offered on both trials to sustain this issue was that her husband had left home, and she had not heard from him, and that the body found at Breckenridge was his. At the first trial everything found upon the body was scrutinized, and the body itself subjected to the most rigid examination. The clothing, shoes, hair, teeth, pipe, and comb, blank book, the height, weight, age, size, were weighed in the balance and found wanting. And now we have the same articles, the same testimony, and no new light whatever as to the body itself, or the clothing and articles taken therefrom; and it is upon these things alone plaintiff relies as to identity. But, after a second attempt with the same result, how can it be said that there is any probability of another trial producing any more complete proof of the identification of that body? The very substance of the proof presented by plaintiff has failed. Cruikshank v. St. Paul F. & M. Ins. Co., 75 Minn. 266, 77 N.W. 958.
Order affirmed.
I have no doubt as to the insufficiency of the evidence to sustain the verdict, and think a new trial should be granted. But I adhere to the dissenting views expressed in the case of Brennan Lumber Co. v. Great Northern Ry. Co., 80 Minn. 214, 83 N.W. 140. I may be wrong in my interpretation of the Cruikshank case and of the...
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