Fields v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co.

• Decision Date: 07 April 1923
• Parties: FIELDS v. METROPOLITAN LIFE INS. CO.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

249 S.W. 798

147 Tenn. 464

FIELDS v. METROPOLITAN LIFE INS. CO.

Supreme Court of Tennessee.

April 7, 1923

Appeal from Chancery Court, Davidson County; Jas. B. Newman Chancellor.

Suit by Mrs. Minnie Fields, administratrix, against the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. Decree for plaintiff was affirmed by the Court of Civil Appeals, and defendant appeals. Affirmed.

Lurton Goodpasture and Henry Goodpasture, both of Nashville, for appellant.

John H De Witt, of Nashville, for appellee.

MORISON Special Judge.

Mrs Minnie Fields, as administratrix of Asbury Fields, filed her original bill to recover from the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company under two policies aggregating $460, with interest and a penalty of 25 per cent. The bill charges that the insured, Asbury Field, was in due course of law convicted of murder and executed. The demurrer of defendant challenges the right to recover on the ground that legal execution is not within the causes of death for which liability under the policy could arise, because contrary to the public policy of the state which forbids insurance against crime and the circumstances thereof.

The chancellor overruled the demurrer, and the Court of Civil Appeals affirmed the decree of the chancellor.

The sole question is one of law: May the beneficiary of a policy of life insurance recover the insurance in Tennessee in case the policy holder in due course of law is sentenced to death and executed?

The Tennessee Constitution provides (article 1, § 12):

"Sec. 12. No Corruption of Blood or Forfeiture of Estates; No Deodands.--That no conviction shall work corruption of blood or forfeiture of estate. The estate of such persons as shall destroy their own lives shall descend or vest as in case of natural death. If any person be killed by casualty, there shall be no forfeiture in consequence thereof."

It should be noted that this section of the Constitution considers together and forbids corruption of blood and forfeitures upon conviction of crime or suicide and deodands. All of these doctrines obtained at the common law.

The doctrine of deodand (any personal chattel which, becoming the immediate instrument causing the death of a human creature, was forfeited to God) was discussed by this court in Parker-Harris Co. v. Tate, 135 Tenn. at page 514, 188 S.W. at page 55 (L. R. A. 1916F, 935). The court said:

"The doctrine fitly belonged to an age in which an action for a death negligently or tortiously caused was not permitted against the culpable person of true moral responsibility. If, however, that person's vehicle was, though inanimate, the occasion of his own death, it was a deodand for pious uses. Needless to say, historians record that the 'pious uses' under the control of the king and his almoner became a scandal which moderns would describe as being graft.

The doctrine, after being subtly refined and pared down, was discarded in England by Stat. 9 and 10, Victoria, chapter 62. To the credit of American jurisprudence, from the outset the doctrine was deemed to be so repugnant to our ideas of justice as not to be included as a part of the common law of this country."

Thus in our Constitution, which is the first and highest declaration of public policy, the law of deodands, as it existed in England, was classed with those laws likewise obtaining in England, which worked corruption of blood, forfeitures, and attainders upon conviction for crimes.

At common law all the property, real and personal, of one attainted was forfeited and his blood so corrupted that nothing could pass by inheritance to, from, or through him. He could not sue except to have his attainder reversed. Thus the wife, children, and collateral relations of the attainted person suffered with him. Collins v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., 232 Ill. 37, 83 N.E. 542, 14 L. R. A. (N. S.) p. 358, 122 Am. St. Rep. 54, 13 Ann. Cas. 129.

The section quoted above from our Constitution also deals with suicide. By the common law suicide was a felony and the law sought to prevent the crime by attaching to it an ignominious burial in a highway with a stake driven through the body and a forfeiture of goods. Synopsis of the Law of Crimes, Minor, p. 44; 4 Blackstone's Commentary, 190; Mink's Case, 123 Mass. 422, 25 Am. Rep. 109. The forfeiture for suicide, like the deodand, was prohibited by our Constitution.

In Jackson v. Loyal Additional Ben. Ass'n, 140 Tenn. 495, 205 S.W. 318, Jackson, the husband of the complainant, joined the association and took out a benefit certificate for $2,000, payable to his wife. He was a member in good standing until he died by his own hand, and the association resisted payment by reason of the suicide. This court said:

"Several courts of the highest repute have held that there can be no recovery under such circumstances. (Citing numerous cases.) In our opinion, however, the weight of the authority is to the contrary. (Citing cases.)"

Again the court says:

"The reasons given by the courts denying recovery under such circumstances here presented are that there is an implied agreement against self-destruction by the insured in every insurance contract, and that a recovery under such circumstances would be a fraud on the insurer; that public policy forbids the enforcement of a contract matured by suicide; and, further, that neither the insured nor his estate, nor beneficiary, should profit by his wrong. (See note 8 L. R. A. [ N. S.] 1125.)

The idea that suicide is excluded from a contract of insurance by implication rests on the supposition that the rates of insurance are based on the theory that the insured will not take his own life. This is assumed in Ritter v. Mutual Life Ins. Co., supra, and other cases following that authority.

This assumption, however, is erroneous, as is noted by the Supreme Court of New Jersey, in Campbell v. Supreme Conclave, supra, and by the Supreme Court of Nebraska in Lange v. Royal Highlanders, supra.

As a matter of fact, the mortality tables, upon which all insurance rates are computed, take into account deaths from every cause; deaths by suicide included. It therefore cannot be said that such a death is impliedly excluded from these contracts, when the consideration thereof rests on such a basis."

Again the court says:

"Moreover, it is against the policy of this state to permit implications in insurance contracts. So far as life insurance proper is concerned, it is expressly provided by chapter 441 of the Acts of 1907, that the entire contract of insurance shall be contained in the policy. Not even written documents, such as applications, or medical examinations, can be looked to and taken as part of the contract, although referred to in the policy, unless physically embraced therein. Arnold v. Insurance Co., 131 Tenn. 720, 177 S.W. 78, L. R. A. 1915E, 363."

Clearly, the policy of this state is settled and declared with respect of suicide. Now, why should the state have one policy with respect of life insurance in the case of a suicide, and another policy with respect of life insurance in the case of a person executed by the state? In the case of the suicide, a person perhaps of sound mind deliberately takes his own life, thereby accelerating the maturity of his policy and vesting in dependents and beneficiaries the amount of his policy. It is conceivable that this method of providing an estate for dependents might be the moving cause for the act of self-destruction. It is also conceivable that a person might deliberately put himself in the way to be legally executed as a means of self-destruction. The only reason assigned in the cases denying the proceeds of life insurance to beneficiaries in the case of executed persons is that of public policy.

There is only one case in the United States cited by counsel, and we have been able to find no other, which holds that the beneficiaries of the life policy of a person executed are entitled to recover--the case of Collins v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., 232 Ill. 37, 83 N.E. 542, 14 L. R. A. (N. S.) 356, 122 Am. St. Rep. 54, 13 Ann. Cas. 129. The reasoning of this case so nearly accords with our views that it is copied at length:

"Whether the legal execution of the assured for a crime committed by him constitutes a defense to an action by his legal representative on a life insurance policy is a question of first impression in this state. Where this defense has been sustained it is generally upon the ground that it is contrary to public policy to permit a recovery where the death is in consequence of a violation of the law. This is the basis of the decision of this case by the appellate court and is the main reason urged here in support of the judgment below.

It is said by the defendant in error that to permit a recovery on this policy would be contrary to the public policy of this state, as it would tend to remove a restraint thrown around persons who are tempted to commit crimes. The argument rests upon the same grounds that were urged centuries ago in support of the now obsolete doctrine of attainder and corruption of blood. In the earlier history of the common law various consequences...