Harrell v. Minnesota Mut. Life Ins. Co.

• Decision Date: 03 September 1996
• Citation: 937 S.W.2d 809
• Parties: Danny Ray HARRELL, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. The MINNESOTA MUTUAL LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

Page 809

937 S.W.2d 809

Danny Ray HARRELL, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. The MINNESOTA MUTUAL LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY, Defendant-Appellee.

Supreme Court of Tennessee,

at Knoxville.

Sept. 3, 1996.

Rufus W. Beamer, Jr., Knoxville, for appellant.

Arthur G. Seymour, Jr., Robert L. Kahn, Frantz, McConnell & Seymour, P.L.C., Knoxville, for appellee.

OPINION

ANDERSON, Justice.

We granted this appeal to determine whether we should retain "the Distretti Rule ¹" adopted by this Court sixty-seven years ago. The rule provides that before a death will be considered accidental under the terms of an insurance contract, the means, as well as the result, must be involuntary, unexpected, and unusual.

In this case, the Chancellor held that the plaintiff's death in an automobile collision was caused by her driving under the influence of an intoxicant, and it therefore was not "death by an accidental injury which was unintended, unexpected, and unforeseen" and, as a result, benefits were not payable on the insurance contract. The Court of Appeals, while noting that the rule had been criticized and rejected by a number of jurisdictions, nevertheless affirmed.

After careful consideration, we have determined that we should join the growing number of jurisdictions which have abandoned the distinction between "accidental means" and "accidental results." We do so because the distinction is contrary to the understanding and reasonable expectations of the average insurance policyholder and contrary to the plain meaning of the terms of the insurance contract. We also think there is a fundamental flaw in analyzing insurance contract terms under tort principles, such as foreseeability. We, therefore, overrule Distretti and its progeny, reverse the Court of Appeals, and remand this case to the trial court for entry of a judgment in favor of the plaintiff.

BACKGROUND

On December 18, 1990, at approximately 9:30 p.m., Robin Denise Harrell died as a result of injuries she sustained in an automobile collision on Maynardville Highway, a four-lane road divided by a grass median in Knox County, Tennessee. The car Robin Harrell was driving crossed the grass median and struck two southbound cars. Tests performed on a blood sample taken after Harrell's death revealed a blood-alcohol level of .20 percent. ²

At the time of her death, Robin Harrell and her husband, Danny Ray Harrell, the plaintiff in this appeal, were insured under a credit life policy issued by the defendant, The Minnesota Mutual Life Insurance Company (hereafter "Minnesota Life"). This policy provides for payment of the balance of the mortgage on the home owned by Robin and Danny Ray Harrell in the event either suffered death by "accidental injury." At the time of Robin Harrell's death, the mortgage balance was approximately $48,000. With regard to coverage for accidental death, the policy provided as follows:

What does death by accidental injury mean?

Death by accidental injury as used in this certificate means that your death results, directly and independently of all other causes, from an accidental drowning or from an accidental injury which was unintended, unexpected and unforeseen....

Danny Ray Harrell filed a claim with Minnesota Life for payment under the policy, but Minnesota Life denied the claim. Harrell, thereafter, brought this action seeking to recover under the policy. For answer, Minnesota Life denied that Robin Harrell died from "an accidental injury which was unintended, unexpected, and unforeseen." Instead, Minnesota Life argued that her death was the foreseeable consequence of driving an automobile under the influence of alcohol.

Following a bench trial, the Chancellor, relying upon a prior decision of this Court, Mutual Life Insurance Co. of New York v. Distretti, 159 Tenn. 138, 17 S.W.2d 11 (1929), and a long line of authority applying "the Distretti rule," dismissed the case, finding specifically that Robin Harrell's death did not result "directly and independently of all other causes ... from an accidental injury which was unintended, unexpected, and unforeseen." Danny Harrell appealed, arguing that the Distretti rule should be modified or overturned. While noting that the rule has been criticized and rejected by a number of jurisdictions, the Court of Appeals affirmed the Chancellor, stating that "Tennessee remains committed to the rule that before a death will be considered accidental the means as well as the result must be involuntary, unexpected, and unusual." (Emphasis added.)

Thereafter, we granted the plaintiff permission to appeal to consider this important question of insurance law--whether recovery under an accidental death insurance policy requires that the means causing death, as well as the resulting death, be involuntary, unexpected, and unusual.

ACCIDENTAL DEATH

In this appeal, Danny Harrell urges this court to abandon the Distretti rule which differentiates between "accidental means" and "accidental results." Harrell argues that this Court should adopt a rule that would allow recovery if death is accidental in the common meaning of the word, regardless of the nature of the means which precipitated the accidental death, and asserts such a rule is consistent with the plain understanding and objectively reasonable expectations of the average insured.

Minnesota Life responds that the longstanding rule established by this Court in Distretti, that death is not "accidental" if it is a foreseeable result of a voluntary act, should be reaffirmed, and that Robin Harrell's death was a foreseeable result of her driving an automobile under the influence of an intoxicant.

We begin our analysis of this issue with a review of the case law in this jurisdiction. The decisions of the lower courts in this case were based upon this Court's decision in Distretti interpreting accidental death. There, Distretti was robbed at gunpoint by bandits. As the bandits were fleeing, Distretti armed himself, ran outside the store, and opened fire on them. The bandits shot back, and Distretti was killed. His wife brought suit to recover under a life insurance policy which paid "upon receipt of due proof that such death resulted from bodily injury effected solely through external violent and accidental means." (Emphasis added.) The Distretti court denied recovery, concluding that Distretti's death was a foreseeable result of his voluntary act of chasing the bandits and shooting at them, and therefore, his death was not produced by "accidental means," for purposes of the insurance policy.

The distinction adopted by the Distretti court between death by "accidental means" and "accidental death" was explained succinctly by Professor Couch as follows:

[A]ccidental death is an unintended and undesigned result arising from acts voluntarily done, whereas death by accidental means is a result arising from acts unintentionally done or events undesignedly occurring. The term 'accidental means' refers to the occurrence or happening which produces the result, rather than the result; it is concerned with the cause of the harm rather than the character of the harm.

10 Couch, Insurance 2d (Rev. ed.) § 41:29, pp. 44-45 (1982 & Supp.1995) (footnotes omitted). Therefore, under the Distretti rule, a death that is caused by an insured's intentional act, or is a foreseeable consequence of an insured's voluntary act, is not considered "accidental." Though the distinction arose in the Distretti case and other cases where the specific term "accidental means" was used in insurance contracts, the distinction has been applied in cases, such as this one, where the term is not a part of the insurance contract. See, e.g., Spears v. Commercial Ins. Co. of Newark, N.J., 866 S.W.2d 544 (Tenn.App.1993). The Distretti rule has never been overruled and has been approved and applied in various contexts in later Tennessee cases. See, e.g., Seeley v. Pilot Fire & Cas. Co., 222 Tenn. 33, 432 S.W.2d 58 (1968); Baker v. National Life & Acc. Ins. Co., 201 Tenn. 247, 298 S.W.2d 715 (1956); Jones v. Fireman's Fund American Life Ins. Co., 731 S.W.2d 532 (Tenn.App.1986); Nicholas v. Provident Life and Acc. Ins. Co., 61 Tenn.App. 633, 457 S.W.2d 536 (1970). Indeed, the distinction between "accidental means" and "accidental results" has been applied in Tennessee in a case similar to the Harrell case to deny recovery under an accidental death policy for an insured party who had been killed in a one car accident while intoxicated. Hobbs v. Provident Life & Acc. Ins. Co., 535 S.W.2d 864 (Tenn.App.1975). The Hobbs court concluded that "the danger of injury or death as result of operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated is a foreseeable one and the appellate courts of this State have repeatedly held that death is not caused by accidental means, within the meaning of an insurance policy if it is a foreseeable result of a voluntary and unnecessary act or course of conduct of the insured." Id., 535 S.W.2d at 866.

While Tennessee has remained committed to the distinction between "accidental means" and "accidental death," commentators and many other courts have criticized the distinction as illusory and contrary to the normal expectations of the average policy holder.

The rejection of the distinction between "accidental means" and "accidental results" was first articulated by Justice Cardozo more than sixty years ago in dissent in Landress v. Phoenix Mut. Life Ins. Co., 291 U.S. 491, 498-99, 54 S.Ct. 461, 463, 78 L.Ed. 934 (1934). There, the insured died after suffering sunstroke. The majority said that since the insured voluntarily exposed himself to the sun and there were no unforeseen intervening causes, the death was not caused by accidental means. Id., 291 U.S. at 496, 54 S.Ct. at 462. Justice Cardozo strongly disagreed:

The attempted distinction between accidental results and accidental means will plunge this branch of the law into a Serbonian Bog. Probably it is true to say that in the strictest sense and...