Layton v. Interstate Bus. Men's Accident Ass'n

• Decision Date: 15 January 1913
• Citation: 139 N.W. 463,158 Iowa 356
• Parties: LAYTON v. INTERSTATE BUSINESS MEN'S ACCIDENT ASS'N.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

158 Iowa 356

139 N.W. 463

LAYTON

v.INTERSTATE BUSINESS MEN'S ACCIDENT ASS'N.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Jan. 15, 1913.

Appeal from District Court, Linn County; Milo P. Smith, Judge.

Action on a policy of accident insurance. The insured died by suicide. At the close of the evidence there was a directed verdict for the defendant. Plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.C. R. Sutherland and J. N. Hughes, both of Cedar Rapids, for appellant.

Dunshee & Haines and Grimm & Trewin, all of Cedar Rapids, for appellee.

EVANS, J.

The policy in question was issued to George W. Layton on March 29, 1910. The beneficiary named therein was Rockwell Y. Layton, the minor child of the insured. The insured took his own life on May 25, 1910. Plaintiff is the mother of the beneficiary minor and brings action as his guardian. The policy sued upon promised indemnity only for “bodily injury effected solely by external violent and accidental means.” If the insured intentionally took his own life, then his death was not accidental within the meaning of the policy. The appellant does not contend otherwise.

[1] The contention of the appellant is that the insured was insane at the time he took his own life, and that “said act causing death sprang from an insane impulse of a disordered and unsound mind.” The evidence tending to show the insanity of Layton consisted of the history of his married life which began on September 18, 1907. He was 40 years of age when married, and his wife, the plaintiff herein, a young lady of 17. Layton was a business man and gave no special evidence of anything abnormal in his business and ordinary social relations. In his relations with his wife, however, he disclosed brutal and fiendish characteristics. This began immediately after the marriage and never ceased until his death. He was of an intense, emotional temperament, alternately profuse with terms of endearment and savage in vituperation; overbearing, domineering, suspicious, jealous, and cruel. He accused and cursed and threatened and beat his wife repeatedly, and often quickly repented. He frequently threatened to kill her and injured her seriously at various times. This history is set out in the record in large volume, and we need not set it out in more detail. On one or two occasions his wife left him and returned again. In October, 1908, the child, Rockwell, was born. About the 1st of February, 1910, the wife left him again and brought an action for a divorce in the city of Cedar Rapids. She then went to her parents in Missouri. He ascertained her whereabouts and followed her a few days later and tried to induce her to return, but without avail. He returned to Iowa and to his business. May 25, 1910, he again appeared at the home of the wife's parents, where she was on a farm near Springfield, Mo., and again pleaded with his wife and demanded that she return. The meeting was a strenuous one in many ways. The final question put by Layton was, “Don't you love me any more?” She answered, “I cannot.” He thereupon suddenly drew a revolver and shot her twice through the body. He then turned the revolver upon himself and took his own life.

The plaintiff, having put this history in evidence, propounded to two expert witnesses a hypothetical question including the entire history and obtained from each one an opinion that Layton was of “unsound” mind. The policy sued on contains a provision for nonliability of the company for disability or death resulting from accidental injury “if the occasion of the accident be bodily or mental infirmity.” In order to avoid this provision of the policy, it is the contention of plaintiff that the insanity of Layton was temporary and momentary only, and that it lacked the quality of permanency or continuity which is said to inhere in the meaning of the term “infirmity.” It is argued that, though insanity is...