Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Hill

• Decision Date: 13 November 1934
• Docket Number: C. C. 513.
• Parties: METROPOLITAN LIFE INS. CO. v. HILL et al.
• Court: West Virginia Supreme Court

177 S.E. 188

115 W.Va. 515

METROPOLITAN LIFE INS. CO. v. HILL et al.

C. C. No. 513.

Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia.

November 13, 1934

Submitted October 30, 1934.

Syllabus by the Court.

1. Unlawful intentional causation of the death of an insured by the beneficiary named in the insurance policy, whether felonious or not, is the test of the common-law rule barring the beneficiary from the proceeds of the policy.

2. In interpreting a statute it is the duty of the court to look to the purpose of the enactment as well as to the language employed.

3. Code 1931, 42-4-2, makes conviction of a felony conclusive against a beneficiary who kills the insured, but does not otherwise change the common-law rule.

From the Circuit Court of Mingo County.

Suit by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company against Lettie May Hill and others. The court overruled a demurrer to plea of the named defendant and a motion to strike matter therefrom and ruling was certified for review.

Ruling on demurrer affirmed, and on motion to strike reversed.

William M. Buchanan, of Charleston, W. H. D. Preece, of Williamson and H. D. Rollins, of Charleston, for defendant Ella Marshall.

E Gaujot Bias and S. N. Friedberg, both of Williamson, for defendant Lettie May Hill.

HATCHER Judge.

This suit was brought by an insurance company as stakeholder, to dispose of the proceeds of an insurance policy on the life of William A. Hill. He was killed by his wife, who was the beneficiary named in the policy and also his sole distributee. Upon a trial for his murder she was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter. She pleads herein that she killed her husband unintentionally, and sets out in her plea her acquittal of felonious killing in the criminal trial. The circuit court overruled (1) a demurrer to her plea, and (2) a motion to strike therefrom all reference to the criminal trial. The plea is here on certification.

1. Inasmuch as the plea alleges that the killing was unintentional, it is good on demurrer.

2. The Revisers' note to Code 1931, 56-4-36, shows that the present scope of a demurrer was not designed to affect in any manner the practice of moving to strike extraneous matter from a pleading. In opposition to the motion to strike herein, Mrs. Hill invokes Code 1931, 42-4-2, which is in part as follows: "* * * No person who has been convicted of feloniously killing another * * * shall take or acquire any money * * * from the one killed, * * * either by descent and distribution, * * * or by any policy or certificate of insurance, or otherwise; but the money * * * to which the person so convicted would otherwise have been entitled shall go to the person or persons who would have taken the same if the person so convicted had been dead at the date of the death of the one killed or conspired against, unless by some rule of law or equity the money or the property would pass to some other person or persons."

Counsel for Mrs. Hill point to the phrase in the statute "No person who has been convicted of feloniously killing another," etc., and contend that it bars only the one so convicted from acquiring money through the killing. They contend further that by implication the statute permits a killer who is convicted of a lesser offense to take from the one killed. They say: "If the statute operates against the beneficiary in the one case (conviction of a felony) it is reasonable to say that it shall operate to the benefit of the beneficiary in the other instance (conviction of a misdemeanor)."

Counsel for the administratrix of the deceased take the position that while the statute has made conviction of a felony conclusive against a beneficiary who kills the insured, the statute has not dealt or purported to deal with conviction of less than a felony.

In seeking the meaning of a statute it is the duty of the court to look to the purpose of the enactment as well as to the language employed. State v. B. & O. R. Co., 61 W.Va 367, 56 S.E. 518. The Revisers of the Code made the following note to the above section: "This section is new. It is framed to meet a case like Johnston v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., 85 W.Va. 70, 100 S.E. 865 [7 A. L. R. 823]." The Johnston Case held: (a) That a beneficiary in a life insurance policy who murdered the insured was not entitled to the proceeds of the policy; and (b) that when such...