Jenkins v. Nat'l Union

• Decision Date: 14 August 1903
• Citation: 118 Ga. 587,45 S.E. 449
• Parties: JENKINS et al. v. NATIONAL UNION.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

45 S.E. 449

118 Ga. 587

JENKINS et al.

v.NATIONAL UNION.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Aug. 14, 1903.

NEW TRIAL—INSTRUCTIONS—INSURANCE-SUICIDE.

1. It is not a ground for a new trial that the court, while giving a proper charge to the jury, did not also give in charge another principle of law which would have been appropriate. Roberts v. State, 40 S. E. 297, 114 Ga. 450.

2. In an action upon a life insurance policy, by the terms of which the insured agreed that no benefit whatever should be paid upon his death should he commit suicide within two yearsafter the date of the policy, whether at the time of committing suicide he should be either sane or insane, and the evidence was sufficient to warrant a finding that, in less than the time mentioned after the date of the policy, the insured took his own life, it was not error for the court to charge the jury that if the insured "destroyed his life by shooting himself, and at the time he shot himself did it voluntarily, and intended to kill himself, then it would be immaterial whether at the time he was sane or insane, or whether his mental faculties were so impaired as to destroy his moral responsibility, and the plaintiffs in this case could not recover."

v 2. See Insurance, vol. 28, Cent. Dig. §§ 1159, 1160.

3. There was no error in any of the other charges complained of. The evidence authorized, if it did not demand, the verdict returned, and the motion for a new trial was properly overruled.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Error from Superior Court, Washington County; B-. D. Evans, Judge.

Action by M. C. Jenkins and others against the National Union. Judgment for defendant, and plaintiffs bring error. Affirmed.

Daley & Bussey and Evans & Evans, for plaintiffs in error.

Hardwick & Hyman, for defendant in error.

CANDLER, J. There is a clear distinction between this case and that of Life Ass'n v. Waller, 57 Ga. 533, and the cases which it follows, relied on by counsel for the plaintiff in error. In the Waller Case, the policy provided that "if the insured shall die by suicide during the continuance of this policy, said life association will pay to the legal holder of this policy its net present value at the date of such death, as computed by the American Experience Table of Mortality, and 4 1/2 per cent. interest." The insured died by bis own hand, while insane. The court held, in effect, that self-destruction by an insane man was not "suicide, " within the meaning of the Code or of the contract of insurance. No such...