Gould v. Mutual Life Ins. Co. of New York

• Decision Date: 25 June 1981
• Docket Number: No. 46694,46694
• Citation: 629 P.2d 1331,95 Wn.2d 722
• Parties: Harriet M. GOULD, Respondent, v. MUTUAL LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY OF NEW YORK, Appellant.
• Court: Washington Supreme Court

Page 722

95 Wn.2d 722

629 P.2d 1331

Harriet M. GOULD, Respondent, v. MUTUAL LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY OF NEW YORK, Appellant.

No. 46694.

Supreme Court of Washington, En Banc.

June 25, 1981.

Lane, Powell, Moss & Miller, C. William Bailey, Douglas J. Shaeffer, Seattle, for appellant.

Ruth E. Darden, City Atty., Richard S. Gidley, Acting City Atty., Bellevue, Norman K. Maleng, Pros. Atty., Darrell L. Syferd, Deputy Pros. Atty Vaughn E. Evans, Seattle, for respondent.

DORE, Judge.

On May 27, 1976, Victor (Vic) Gould was found shot to death in Robinswood Park in Bellevue, Washington. His widow sued the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York (MONY) to collect the proceeds of a life insurance policy under which her husband had been insured. MONY pleaded the affirmative defense of suicide. All parties agree that the insurance policy excludes coverage where the insured commits suicide. The widow contended her husband had been murdered.

At trial evidence was produced to support both theories. No suicide note was found. The Bellevue Police Department investigated the death, initially treating it as a homicide, as was the practice in all cases of violent deaths.

The issue of whether Vic Gould killed himself was submitted to the jury which returned a verdict for the plaintiff/widow. This appeal followed. The main question on appeal is whether the trial court erred in its charge to the jury regarding the presumption against suicide. The following jury instructions were given on this issue:

INSTRUCTION 7

Where a deceased dies as a result of a gunshot wound, it is presumed that the death was due to accident or by the act of another, rather than due to suicide. Such presumption remains in the case until it is overcome by credible evidence to the contrary which points to suicide, but at all times the burden is upon the defendant to prove that the death of the deceased was due to suicide.

INSTRUCTION 8

In the case of a violent death, where natural causes are excluded, the presumption against suicide is overcome, where the preponderance of the evidence is consistent with the theory of suicide, and is at the same time inconsistent with any reasonable theory of death by accident or by the act of another.

INSTRUCTION 9

You are instructed that while at the outset there exists a presumption against death by suicide, this presumption is not evidence. It merely shifts to the defendant in this case the duty of going forward with the evidence. The presumption here disappears when there is evidence on the subject which, in absence of the presumption, would warrant an inference of death by suicide. However, in the final analysis the burden of proving suicide by a fair preponderance of the evidence still rests with the defendant.

These instructions were approved in Burrier v. Mutual Life Ins. Co. of New York, 63 Wash.2d 266, 387 P.2d 58 (1963). We are asked in this case, although not directly by MONY in its brief, to abolish the presumption against suicide, or at least to change its application in Washington. A brief discussion of that presumption follows.

The origin of the presumption against suicide is obscure. Its existence at early common law, however, has been established, as well as the policy behind its application. Suicide was a felony and considered a more heinous crime than murder. A host of worldly punishments would devolve upon the suicide's family; all property of the suicide would escheat to the crown, and an ignoble burial by the highway, with a stake driven through the victim's heart, forced humiliation upon the survivors. To relieve the family of these penalties, there arose a presumption that no sane man would take his own life. Slight evidence would induce a coroner's jury to bring in a verdict of temporary insanity, thus avoiding the crime of suicide. Hartman, The Presumption Against Suicide as Applied in the Trial of Insurance Cases, 19 Marq.L.Rev. 20 (1934).

Other reasons for the establishment of the presumption against suicide, distinct from, yet related to, the forfeitures suffered by the surviving family, have been enunciated.

The presumption ... is said to have as its basis the love of life and the instinct of self preservation, the fear of death, the fact that self-destruction is...