Davis v. Reliance Life Ins. Co.

• Decision Date: 06 March 1926
• Docket Number: No. 4696.,4696.
• Citation: 12 F.2d 248
• Parties: DAVIS v. RELIANCE LIFE INS. CO. OF PITTSBURGH, PA.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

12 F.2d 248 (1926)

DAVIS v. RELIANCE LIFE INS. CO. OF PITTSBURGH, PA.

No. 4696.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

March 6, 1926.

T. J. Wills, of Hattiesburg, Miss., for plaintiff in error.

W. Calvin Wells, of Jackson, Miss., for defendant in error.

Before WALKER and FOSTER, Circuit Judges, and GRUBB, District Judge.

GRUBB, District Judge.

This was an action brought by the plaintiff in error against the defendant in error in the District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi to recover on an accident insurance policy for the death of the insured by alleged accidental means, and was instituted by his sister, who was the beneficiary named in the policy.

A single question is presented — whether the insured came to his death by suicide. The law of the case is well settled, and not disputed. It is conceded by counsel that recovery for a self-inflicted death, whether insured was sane or insane, is excluded by the terms of the policy; that the burden was on the defendant to establish the fact that the insured purposely killed himself; that there is a presumption against death by suicide, in the absence of proof of the cause of death, or when the proof is conflicting; and that the burden is not required to be sustained by proof beyond all reasonable doubt, but only by a fair preponderance of the evidence, and that circumstantial evidence may be sufficient to overcome the presumption and sustain the burden. New York Life Ins. Co. v. Weaver (C. C. A.) 8 F.(2d) 680; New York Life Ins. Co. v. Bradshaw (C. C. A.) 2 F.(2d) 457; Cooley, Briefs on Insurance, vol. 4, pp. 3346 and 3363.

In the light of these legal principles, the question is whether the evidence in the record overcame the presumption against suicide and sustained the burden resting on the defendant to show that the insured purposely killed himself. The District Judge held that it did and directed a verdict for the defendant.

The insured lived at Wiggins, Miss. He was a single man, whose only near relation was his sister, the beneficiary. He was engaged in the lumber and mercantile business, having an interest in a sawmill, together with others, among whom were the witnesses Batson and Holleman. He had no family troubles and no serious business worries. On the morning of the day before he was shot, he was at the sawmill near Carnes, Miss., in which he was interested. While there he asked his partner, Batson (according to Batson's evidence), for some of his private papers that he had been keeping in the office safe. While Batson was getting the papers for him, he told Batson in substance that he was tired of life and was going to kill himself, as soon as he had gotten his affairs in shape, and that he intended to shoot himself in the manner the evidence on the trial tended to show that he did in fact. He said, further, in answer to Batson's question, that he had thought upon how suicide would affect his future life, and had convinced himself it would be all right. He also said he was not going to disclose his purpose to anyone else, except his partner, Holleman, and that, if either Batson or Holleman disclosed his purpose to others or attempted to interfere with it, he would kill them, and he declared that there was nothing wrong with his mind.

As a matter of fact, he did not make the same disclosure to Holleman, though he saw and talked with him normally and about other things after he had talked with Batson. Batson told Holleman of the insured's disclosure to him, and they both were seriously enough impressed by it to telephone a physician at Wiggins to try and see the insured and to dissuade him from his purpose. The insured, after securing the papers from the safe, went to his home at Wiggins. On the morning of the next day he left Wiggins in a Ford coupé for Hattiesburg, which was about 35 miles distant. At a point called McInnis' Springs, on the highway between Wiggins and Hattiesburg, and about a mile from Hattiesburg, his dead body was found in the road beside his car, about 11 o'clock in the forenoon,...