Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Sullen
| Decision Date | 30 April 1982 |
| Citation | 413 So.2d 1106 |
| Parties | METROPOLITAN LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY, a Corporation v. Jefferson L. SULLEN, et al. 80-279. |
| Court | Alabama Supreme Court |
W. Terry Bullard of Merrill & Harrison, Dothan, for appellant.
Joseph P. Hughes, Geneva, for appellees.
Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (Metropolitan), defendant below, appeals from a judgment awarding $13,090.30 to plaintiffs, beneficiaries under an accidental death policy issued by Metropolitan. Because the plaintiffs are children and grandchildren of the insured deceased, Roosevelt Sullen, Sr., we will refer to them as the Sullens. The basis of Metropolitan's appeal is that the trial court erred in refusing to allow Metropolitan to amend its answer during trial and in denying several of its requested jury instructions. We find that the trial court committed no reversible error in these actions and affirm.
Mr. Sullen was sixty-four years old and a Civil Service employee at Fort Rucker at the time of his death. On August 26, 1977, Mr. Sullen was driving away from Fort Rucker at about 8:00 a. m. when he made a U-turn and drove his car into a bridge abutment. He died in this crash. Mr. Sullen had been in Flowers Hospital in Dothan the first week of June, 1977, for treatment of involutional depression.
When the Sullens filed this action to recover accidental death benefits, Metropolitan answered by denying that Mr. Sullen died by accidental means, pleading the general issue, and averring that Mr. Sullen's death "was caused by or the result of an intentional self-destruction or intentionally self-inflicted injury and that hence Plaintiffs should take nothing by this suit." The court held a pretrial conference and issued a pretrial order on November 8, 1979, which gave the contested legal issue as "[w]hether or not the death of Roosevelt Sullen, Sr., was 'caused by or the result of intentional self-destruction or intentionally self-inflicted injury, while sane or insane,' within the meanings of the terms of the Policy of insurance insuring the life of Roosevelt Sullen, Sr., so as to exclude Plaintiffs' claim for accidental death benefits under said policy." We have added the internal quotation marks to point out that this is the exact language of an exception to accidental death coverage under the policy (the suicide exclusion).
After the jury was struck for trial on October 15, 1980, Metropolitan moved to amend the pretrial order by adding a contention that recovery would be barred by another exclusion in the policy against payment for death "caused wholly or partly, directly or indirectly, by disease or bodily or mental infirmity, or by medical or surgical treatment or diagnosis thereof" (the mental infirmity exclusion). Counsel for the Sullens objected, and the trial court ruled that the case would proceed on the pretrial order because the mental infirmity exclusion would involve a substantially different defense from the suicide exclusion.
Metropolitan moved for directed verdict at the close of the Sullens' evidence and at the close of all the evidence. At a conference held prior to the court's charging the jury, Metropolitan moved to amend the pleadings to conform to the evidence pursuant to Rule 15(b), Alabama Rules of Civil Procedure (ARCP), seeking to include the mental infirmity exclusion. It also requested four jury charges based on this exclusion. The trial court denied these motions and requests, and, subsequently, Metropolitan's motion for a new trial.
We find no error in the trial court's decisions. A pretrial order, when entered, "shall...
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