Hutchcraft's Ex'r v. Travelers' Ins. Co.

• Decision Date: 28 May 1888
• Citation: 8 S.W. 570,87 Ky. 300
• Parties: HUTCHCRAFT'S EX'R v. TRAVELERS' INS. CO. OF HARTFORD.
• Court: Kentucky Court of Appeals

8 S.W. 570

87 Ky. 300

HUTCHCRAFT'S EX'R v. TRAVELERS' INS. CO. OF HARTFORD.

Court of Appeals of Kentucky.

May 28, 1888

Appeal from court of common pleas, Bourbon county.

Action by David Hutchcraft's executor against the Travelers' Insurance Company of Hartford, Conn., on accidental insurance policy. Judgment for defendant, and plaintiff appeals.

Wm Lindsay and Russell Mann, for appellant.

James S. Pirtle, for appellee.

BENNETT J.

During the time that appellant's testator held two tickets of insurance in the appellee's company, insuring his life in the sum of $3,000 each against death "through external violent, and accidental means," he was waylaid and assassinated for the purpose of robbery. The appellee interposed two defenses to the appellant's action to recover these sums: First, that, the appellant's testator having been killed by intentional "means," his death was not accidental, within the meaning of the terms of the policy which insured him against death "through external, violent, and accidental means;" second, that the proviso in the policy expressly exempted the appellee from liability in case the appellant's testator come to his death through injuries intentionally inflicted by another person. These defenses will be disposed of in their order.

1. In each ticket the appellee covenanted to pay $3,000 to Hutchcraft's representative, if he should be killed "through external, violent, and accidental means." Accidents are of two kinds: First, those that befall a person without any human agency; as the killing of a person by lightning. Here the elemental properties of lightning and its flash are not caused or controlled by human agency; but the fact that the person was struck, by unintentionally placing himself within its range, is, as to him, an accident. Second, those that are the result of human agency. The latter are divided as follows: First. That which happens to a person by his own agency; as if he is walking or running, and accidentally falls and hurts himself. Here he falls by reason of his agency in walking or running, but he did not intend to fall. He did not foresee that he would fall in time to avoid it. The fall was therefore accidental. Second. That which befalls a person by the agency of another person, without the concurrence of the latter's will; as where one, standing on a scaffold, unintentionally lets a brick fall from his hand, and it strikes a person below. Here the dropping of the brick, as it was not intended by the former, and was unforeseen by the latter, is, in the broadest sense, an accident. Third. That which a person intentionally does, whereby another is unintentionally injured; as where one intentionally fires a gun in the air and accidentally shoots another person. Here the act of firing the gun was intentional, but the shooting of the person was unintentional. Therefore, on the part of the person firing the gun, the shooting of the other would be accidental, though not in as broad a sense as in the former case, because some part of his act was intentional; but, as to the person shot, it was by purely accidental means. Fourth. So, also, as we think, if one person intentionally injures another, which was not the result of a rencounter or the misconduct of the latter, but was unforeseen by him, such injury as to the latter, although intentionally inflicted by the former, would be accidental. When the injury is not the result of the misconduct or the participation of the...