Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Maddox

• Citation: 127 S.W. 503
• Parties: METROPOLITAN LIFE INS. CO. v. MADDOX.
• Decision Date: 28 April 1910
• Court: Kentucky Court of Appeals

127 S.W. 503

METROPOLITAN LIFE INS. CO. v. MADDOX.

Court of Appeals of Kentucky.

April 28, 1910

Appeal from Circuit Court, Jefferson County, Common Pleas Branch Third Division.

"Not to be officially reported."

Action by Hattie J. Maddox against the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Affirmed.

Eugene R. Attkisson, for appellant.

Benjamin F. Washer and Norton L. Goldsmith, for appellee.

LASSING J.

The life of William B. Maddox was insured for $1,000 by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company on November 3, 1906. His wife, Hattie J. Maddox, was made the beneficiary. On March 16, 1907, he died from carbolic acid poisoning. Whether the drug was taken by accident or design is the mooted question out of which this litigation grows. His wife, the beneficiary, had the proofs of loss made out and forwarded them to the company. Shortly thereafter she received a letter from the company notifying her that the company was not liable for anything over and above the premium which her husband had paid, to wit, $16.76, and demanding that it be furnished with the record of the inquest of the coroner's jury. Upon receipt of this letter she consulted a lawyer, who answered same for her. Shortly thereafter this suit was filed. The company answered and denied liability for any sum whatever over and above the $16.76, the amount of the first premium which deceased had paid upon the policy. Proof was taken and the case heard by a jury, which returned a verdict in favor of plaintiff. The company appeals.

It is insisted that the judgment of the lower court should be reversed, first, because a peremptory instruction should have been given the jury to find for the defendant; second because the trial court should have sustained exceptions to certain depositions offered in evidence by the plaintiff and, third, because the plea in abatement set up in the second paragraph of the defendant's answer should have been sustained and the suit dismissed.

It is shown that the assured retired on the night of the 15th of March some time after 10 o'clock. Along later in the night his wife, who was sleeping in an adjoining room with her sick child, was aroused by groans coming from her husband's room and the barking of a little dog that they had in the house. She had herself been sick for some time and this noise scared and excited her. She aroused the servant girl to go for help. The girl became terror stricken, and appellee highly hysterical, if not frightened. The servant aroused the neighbors, and appellee, in a highly hysterical condition, went to a neighbor's house, three doors away, where she collapsed completely, became unconscious, and remained so until the next day. Neighbors who responded to the call of the servant girl found the assured lying undressed in bed, with the two ounce bottle that had contained carbolic acid near him.

We will consider the grounds for reversal in their natural order. Should the plea in abatement have been sustained? We think not, for the reason that after appellant had been furnished the usual affidavits of the undertaker and acquaintances, showing the death of the assured, and appellee's affidavit as claimant and beneficiary, it notified her that it was not liable for any sum whatever under this policy, because her husband had suicided. The offer to return the premium paid will not justify the allegation now that it did not deny all liability. It denied all liability for which appellee was seeking to hold it, and, upon being acquainted with such fact, appellee was relieved of the necessity of attempting to comply with its request for more or additional evidence bearing upon the death of her husband. Her failure to supply the additional proof furnishes no ground of complaint. Continental Ins. Co. v. Buchanan, 108 S.W. 355, 32 Ky. Law Rep. 1298. And by denying all liability under the policy and seeking to avoid payment on the theory that decedent suicided appellant dispensed with the necessity for further proof. Wortham v. Illinois Life Ins. Co., 107 S.W. 276, 32 Ky. Law Rep. 827. A different case might have been presented if the company had written to appellee, demanding further proof in order that it might determine its liability; but, when it notified her that it was answerable only for the premiums paid, it relieved appellee of any duty to furnish further proof.

The evidence complained of is that of a neighbor, Mrs. Weeks, to the effect that she had borrowed the vial of carbolic acid some week or ten days before the death of the assured, and returned it on the morning of the day preceding his death and that,...