Grosvenor v. Fidelity & Casualty Co.
| Decision Date | 26 June 1918 |
| Docket Number | 19929 |
| Citation | 168 N.W. 596,102 Neb. 629 |
| Parties | GERTRUDE M. GROSVENOR, APPELLEE, v. FIDELITY & CASUALTY COMPANY, APPELLANT |
| Court | Nebraska Supreme Court |
APPEAL from the district court for Douglas county: ALEXANDER C TROUP, JUDGE. Reversed.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.
Morsman Maxwell & Crossman, for appellant.
Sullivan Rait & Pratt, contra.
Plaintiff's petition in her action upon a policy, insuring against accident, for the death of her husband caused by accidental means, contained an allegation that "Walter B. Grosvenor did lose his life by accidental carbolic acid or toxic poisoning." The answer contained a general denial, and alleged that Grosvenor "took his own life and committed suicide by the intentional drinking of a deadly poison, namely, by the drinking of carbolic acid." The reply contained a denial and admission that "Grosvenor died by means of drinking a deadly poison, to wit, carbolic acid." When the cause came on for trial, the plaintiff, and afterwards the defendant, declined to offer evidence; whereupon the court, apparently upon the theory that, death from a deadly poison being admitted, the burden would be upon the defendant to introduce enough evidence to rebut a presumption in plaintiff's favor that the death was accidental, rather than suicidal, directed a verdict in favor of the plaintiff. The defendant, believing that the court erred in its holding, in that the pleadings failed to show death produced by bodily injury and caused by accidental means, failed to show that it was not suicidal nor caused exclusively by drinking carbolic acid, the burden being upon plaintiff to show these facts, appeals.
The party who would be defeated, if no evidence were given on either side, must first produce his evidence. Rev. St. 1913, sec. 7846.
Assuming that the burden is upon the plaintiff to prove death by accidental means, and that the mere fact of death raises a presumption or inference that the death was accidental, was the trial court right in its conclusion based upon the facts shown by the pleadings? Our opinion is to the contrary.
Because men love life and fear death, they instinctively avoid obvious danger. This fact, drawn from experience, is the basis of a presumption, relied upon by plaintiff, that when the cause or manner of death is unknown we infer that it was not suicidal. The inference is not based upon a law of nature which is invariable. Men do frequently commit suicide. It is one of a multitude of legitimate inferences, in which we infer the unknown, from the known, having greater or less degrees of probability, which we use in reasoning to arrive at the ultimate fact. Being a probability resting upon human experience, in its nature, it is controlling only in the absence of evidence of the actual.
When knowing only that one has died from drinking carbolic acid, you say you are in doubt as to cause, and then, bringing into service the presumption against suicidal intent, you finally conclude that the death was accidental, are you not guilty of that error known in logic as petitio principii? Had you not, in reaching your first conclusion, given the theory of accident the benefit of the truth upon which the presumption is founded? Had you assumed as a fact that the deceased contemplated suicide or was indifferent to life, you might not have entertained the doubt. Let us suppose experience has shown that of all the persons who have died from drinking carbolic acid three out of four were cases of suicide; then, would it not be palpably absurd to infer in the given case that the death was not intentional? The rule invoked arises when we are ignorant of the intent and loses its force as a presumption in presence of actual facts bearing upon intent. The presumption then comes in conflict with other presumptions or facts which may overcome it. There is the almost conclusive presumption that when one drinks he drinks voluntarily; the presumption that when one drinks he knows what he is drinking, especially so if he is drinking carbolic acid; the presumption that when one drinks carbolic acid he knows the poisonous character of the liquid; and the presumption that one intends the natural consequences of his own act. These presumptions bear upon the question of...
To continue reading
Request your trial