Knickerbocker Life Ins. Co. of New York v. Peters

• Decision Date: 03 June 1875
• Parties: THE KNICKERBOCKER LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY OF NEW YORK v. MAGDALENA PETERS.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

42 Md. 414

THE KNICKERBOCKER LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY OF NEW YORK v. MAGDALENA PETERS.

Court of Appeals of Maryland

June 3, 1875

APPEAL from the Court of Common Pleas.

This was an action of assumpsit brought by the appellee on a policy of insurance issued to her on the life of her husband John Peters, by the appellant. The policy contained a proviso that "in case the insured shall die by his own hand or act, then this policy shall be void." The defendant pleaded, 1st. That it never was indebted. 2nd. That the assured did not comply with the conditions of the policy 3rd. That the assured died by his own hands and act. Issue was joined on the first and second pleas, and the plaintiff replied to the third plea, that the assured, at the time of his death, was laboring under insanity, and was impelled to the taking of his life by a power he could not resist. On this replication issue was joined.

At the trial the plaintiff offered in evidence the policy, and proved the due payment of the premiums thereon. She further proved that the assured died on the 8th of October, 1873, and that she went at once to the office of the defendant in Baltimore and gave notice of his death. It further appeared from the evidence that Peters hanged himself in an out-house on the premises which he occupied. Evidence was also introduced tending to show the insanity of the assured.

The plaintiff offered two prayers which the Court (GAREY, J.,) granted. The defendant offered fourteen prayers, the fourth twelfth and fourteenth of which the Court granted, as also the eighth with a modification--its other prayers were refused. The defendant excepted; it also specially excepted to the prayers of the plaintiff, upon the ground that there was no sufficient evidence to sustain them. The insertion of the prayers is deemed unnecessary.

The verdict and judgment were for the plaintiff, and the defendant appealed.

The cause was argued before BARTOL, C.J., STEWART, GRASON and MILLER, J.

William A. Fisher, for the appellant.

What is the proper construction to be placed upon the words, that the policy is to be void in case the assured dies by his own hand or act? It must be admitted that there exists an irreconcilable difference of opinion between the various Courts as to the construction to be placed upon such clause. Some of the Courts hold that the policy is avoided, when the assured kills himself, intending to do the act, and having sufficient capacity to understand the physical nature of the act he is about to do, and that it must result in his death, and that it is of no consequence that he may have been under some insane delusion which blinded him to the moral aspect of the case. Other cases hold that if the assured was incapable of understanding the moral character of the act, the policy will not be avoided.

The former is the more just and reasonable rule. If the operation of the clause is to be confined to cases in which the assured was in the full possession of all his faculties at the time of the taking of his own life, then it was wholly unnecessary to insert it, because there could not be a recovery under such circumstances, because of the fraud of the assured. Hartman vs. Keystone Ins. Co., 21 Penna. State, 466; Bliss on Life Insurance, secs. 242 and 243.

The former rule is supported by the English cases. Borradaile vs. Hunter, 5 Mann. & Gran., 639; Clift vs. Schwabe, 3 Mann. Gran. & Scott, 437. By the Courts of Massachusetts. Dean vs. American Mutual Life Ins. Co., 4 Allen, 96; Cooper vs. Mass. Mut. Ins. Co., 102 Mass., 227. By several of the Judges in the Circuit Courts of the United States. Nimick vs. Mut. Ben. Life Ins. Co., 3 Brewster, 502; Gay vs. Union Mutual Life Ins. Co., 9 Blatchford, 142.

The earlier cases in New York seemed to countenance the other construction, but the highest Court of that State has deliberately given its adhesion to the position now contended for. Van Zandt vs. Mut. Ben. Life Ins. Co., 55 New York, 170.

J. Alexander Preston, for the appellee.

MILLER J., delivered the opinion of the Court.

The insurance company defends this action under the clause in the policy which makes it void, if the assured "shall die by his own hand or act." It is now too well settled to admit of question, that this clause is not to be construed as comprehending every possible case in which life is taken by the party's own act. For instance, all the authorities concur in the view that an unintentional or accidental taking of life is not within the meaning and intention of the clause. Thus if by inadvertence or accident a party shoots himself with a gun or pistol, or takes poison by mistake, or in a sudden frenzy or delusion tears a bandage from a wound and bleeds to death, in the literal sense of the terms he dies by his own act, yet all the decisions agree that a reasonable construction of the proviso according to the plain and obvious intention of the parties would exclude such cases from its operation. There is much conflict of judicial opinion as to what in other respects, is its true construction. The English Courts have determined that the clause includes all intentional acts of self-destruction whether criminal or not, and that insanity, in order to prevent the clause from operating, must have progressed so far or be of such a character, as to render the party unable to appreciate and understand the nature and physical consequences of the act he was committing, and that the question whether he was, at the time, in a state of mind to be morally and legally responsible for his acts is immaterial. Borradaile vs. Hunter, 5 M. & G., 639; Clift vs. Schwabe, 3 M. G. & S., 437. The rejection of this latter consideration met however with the strong dissent of some of the ablest of the English Judges. CH. J. TINDAL, C. B. POLLOCK and CRESWELL and WIGHTMAN, J. J., held that looking at the words themselves and the context and position in which they are found, a felonious killing of himself and no other was intended to be excepted from the policy. That was the construction placed by C.J. TINDAL, upon the proviso in Borradaile vs. Hunter, and the clause before us is equally open to the same application of the maxim noscitur a sociis, and to the same answer that was given to it by a majority of the Court in that case....