Boynton v. Equitable Life Assurance Society

• Decision Date: 01 January 1900
• Docket Number: 13,767
• Citation: 105 La. 202,29 So. 490
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
• Parties: F. M. BOYNTON v. EQUITABLE LIFE ASSURANCE SOCIETY

29 So. 490

105 La. 202

F. M. BOYNTON v. EQUITABLE LIFE ASSURANCE SOCIETY

No. 13,767

Supreme Court of Louisiana

January 1, 1900

APPEAL from the First Judicial District, Parish of Caddo -- Land, J.

Thomas Fletcher Bell, for Plaintiff, Appellee.

Wise &amp Herndon, for Defendant, Appellant.

OPINION

BREAUX, J.

Plaintiff claims the amount of a policy issued by the defendant on May 24th, 1893, for five thousand dollars. He was the beneficiary named in the policy.

Defendant's answer admits that the company issued the policy; denies that the premium had been paid, and sets up the plea of the intentional suicide of the insured. Defendant has abandoned the plea of failure of the insured to pay the premium.

Between seven and eight o'clock on the morning of March 13th 1894, A. Boynton, after having taken breakfast with his family, consisting of four children -- a boy, aged sixteen; a girl, aged eighteen, and two others, aged eleven and five respectively, and to whom he had talked pleasantly during the meal, left the breakfast table, at which his children were still seated, and went into another room of the house. A few minutes after, a report of a gun was heard. The eldest son was the first to enter the room and was closely followed by his eldest sister. The father was found sitting in a straight, high-backed, armless chair, leaning back. He was not conscious. He was taken from the chair and placed upon the bed in the room in which he was. His daughter removed his shoes from his feet. The son is not certain, but thinks he saw the gun, when he came into the room, lying across his father's leg, with the muzzle turned toward the right, in a direction opposite to that in which he was leaning. The gun was a simple single-barrel, thirty-two-inch shotgun. The thumb-catch of the hammer was broken. The son had some time prior tied a string around the hammer, by which it could be cocked. The father and the son had been in the habit of shooting rats with it around the house. The son had left it loaded the previous day, but it was not his habit, after using it, to leave it loaded. The gun was a "trick gun," it seems, and required, as we understand it, some knowledge of its peculiarities to shoot it.

We are informed by the testimony that the deceased had not met with any severe misfortune in his immediate family, except the death of his wife about three years before, and that he was a kind father. He was forty-seven years old and was in good health. His only ailment at the time was that he had neuralgic headaches.

The defendant introduced testimony to prove that twice on former occasions, the insured had sought voluntary death. The first attempt, it was contended, was of a date some months previous to his death. He bought some morphine from a drug store near his home and said to the owner something about his going to use it to kill himself. On cross-examination, the witness, who is a merchant and sells medicines, changed and altered this part of his testimony, saying that the deceased said that this would about answer his purpose or about do the work. The witness added, "I had no idea, though, that he meant what he said."

On another occasion, he went to a boarding house in Shreveport and asked for a room to himself for the night, as he wished a quiet night's rest. He was heard groaning during the night and a physician was called in by the proprietress of the boarding house. The next day, she inquired of him how he was. He replied that he was feeling very well, and said, "Why did you send for a doctor? I wanted to die." His family troubles were more than he could bear, so he is reported to have said.

The testimony leads to the inference that his family troubles grew out of the conduct of his two brothers, who were, a few months before his death, charged with larceny, and were forced to leave the State to avoid a criminal prosecution. Upon evidence of which...