Cruse v. Union Central Life Ins. Co.
| Decision Date | 08 February 1945 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action No. 418. |
| Citation | 59 F. Supp. 504 |
| Parties | CRUSE v. UNION CENTRAL LIFE INS. CO. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Texas |
O'Fiel & O'Fiel, of Beaumont, Tex., for plaintiff.
Locke, Locke, Dyer & Purnell, of Dallas, Tex., and Orgain, Carroll & Bell, of Beaumont, Tex., for defendant.
Plaintiff brought this suit alleging that her husband, Henry Elton Cruse, deceased, a practicing attorney of Beaumont, Texas, had a policy of double indemnity insurance in effect at the time of his death on June 26, 1941, with the defendant company, in which she was named as sole beneficiary. The face amount of the policy, to-wit: $10,000, was paid plaintiff without prejudice to plaintiffs right to maintain suit for double indemnity.
The deceased met his death as a result of five or six pistol wounds from a .38 caliber double action Smith & Wesson revolver. This revolver had been in the exclusive possession of the deceased for some time prior to his death. On the morning of the fatal day, deceased came to his office in the Goodhue Building, located on Pearl Street in Beaumont, Texas, alone, although he was usually accompanied by his wife, who also maintained an office in his suite of offices and assisted him in his work. Soon after his arrival, he requested his secretary to go to the ground floor of the Goodhue Building to purchase for him some cigars. The secretary testified that shortly thereafter, while returning from the mission above mentioned, she heard pistol shots issuing from deceased's private office, and that she immediately hastened into said office, and there found him alone and lying on the floor; that his desk chair was over-turned, and that he was bleeding from wounds in his chest, and that he was then holding his revolver in his right hand, and with his right thumb was attempting to draw back the hammer, while with his right forefinger he was pulling the trigger. He was right handed.
The range of the bullets indicates that they were fired at a time when deceased was sitting in his office desk chair. The condition of deceased's clothes and the powder marks on his body, and particularly the powder burn in the web between his left thumb and left forefinger, show that the revolver was fired at close range. An autopsy disclosed that all of the bullets entered deceased's body within an area 2½ by 4 inches, in his left breast, in and near the left ventricle of his heart.
Deceased undoubtedly met his death either because of an accident, or was murdered, or committed suicide. Plaintiff does not contend that deceased met his death as a result of an accident. The question then is — "Was deceased murdered, or did he commit suicide?"
In order to find that deceased was killed, it is necessary to assume that such killing was done by some unusually agile person who, in broad open day light, made entrance, unseen, from the roof of a nearby building, facing on a prominent city street, through a window and into deceased's office, and there obtained from deceased — a large, strong and healthy man—possession of deceased's revolver, and then expertly shot him six times at an unusual angle, without leaving any evidence of a struggle, and then departed unnoticed, leaving the death weapon in the right hand of deceased.
The important issue in the case is whether it was physically possible for the deceased to have shot himself in or near the heart five or six times. On this point the medical testimony is in sharp conflict. The fact that deceased lived until after reaching the hospital, a matter of more than thirty minutes, is of great significance in the solution of this problem. It is in testimony that deceased was, up until the time of his death, a heavy drinker of intoxicating liquors, and was, for some months prior to his death, extremely despondent.
The definition of an accident, as contained in the clause in the insurance policy in question,...
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...Coach Corporation, 6 Cir., 65 F.2d 256; citing cases." See Bonner v. The Texas Co., 5 Cir., 89 F.2d 291; Cruse v. Union Central Life Insurance Co., D.C., 59 F.Supp. 504; Mutual Life Insurance Co. of New York v. Sargent, 5 Cir., 51 F.2d 4; Deposit Guaranty Bank & Trust Co. v. United States, ......