Moore v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co.

• Decision Date: 20 February 1951
• Docket Number: No. 27977,27977
• Parties: MOORE v. METROPOLITAN LIFE INS. CO.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

Page 210

237 S.W.2d 210

MOORE v. METROPOLITAN LIFE INS. CO.

No. 27977.

St. Louis Court of Appeals, Missouri.

Feb. 20, 1951.

Fordyce, Mayne, Williams & Hartman, and Thomas Rowe Schwarz, all of St. Louis, for appellant.

Henry D. Espy, St. Louis, for respondent.

BENNICK, Judge.

This is an action upon a group accidental death policy insuring the employees of the Statler Hotel Corporation, including one Julia Moore, who met her death on February 9, 1949, as the result of a stab wound received in an altercation with a woman named Irma Harold in the block on Twenty-first Street between Market and Walnut Streets in the City of St. Louis.

Each employee covered by the policy had been issued an individual certificate; and under the certificate which had been issued to her, Julia Moore had designated as beneficiary her daughter, Gloria. This action is brought by Gloria Moore against the insurer, Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, to recover the accidental death benefit of $1,000 along with the statutory penalty and an attorney's fee for alleged vexatious refusal to pay.

Originating in the magistrate court, the case went on appeal to the circuit court, where there was a verdict for plaintiff for the death benefit of $1,000 together with interest of $40 and an attorney's fee of $200. Judgment was thereupon rendered for plaintiff, and against defendant, for the aggregate amount of $1,240; and following an unavailing motion for a new trial, defendant gave notice of appeal, and by subsequent steps has caused the case to be transferred to this court for our review.

There were apparently no eyewitnesses to the affray, which occurred about 11:15 o'clock at night.

In response to calls a number of police officers went to the scene, where they found Julia Moore lying in the street unconcious with her head resting in the arm of Irma Harold, who was kneeling down beside her. Upon being interrogated as to what had occurred, Irma Harold handed one of the officers a knife and a pair of scissors, and stated that she had stabbed Julia Moore with the knife, and that the latter had been stabbing at her with the scissors. The court admitted the testimony as to what Irma Harold had said upon the theory that her statements had constituted a part of the res gestae.

While the officers noticed quite a bit of blood on the street, there was none to be observed on Irma Harold until she was taken under arrest to the police station where it was discovered that she too had a stab wound on her person. Julia Moore had meanwhile been taken direct to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead upon arrival. While under detention at the station Irma Harold was subjected to further interrogation by the police, and some two hours after her arrest she gave a more complete and detailed statement which was taken down and embodied in a police report, a copy of which was supplied the coroner for inclusion in the transcript of the coroner's inquest.

One of defendant's inspectors conducted an investigation of the claim, and in the course of his investigation procured a copy of the transcript of the coroner's inquest. Defendant afterwards denied the claim; and upon payment being refused, this action followed.

On two separate occasions defendant sought unavailingly to introduce the transcript of the coroner's inquest in evidence. Whether the transcript was to be admitted depended of course upon the competency of the statement of Irma Harold which she had given the police while she was being held at the station after Julia Moore's death. When put upon the stand as a witness for defendant, Irma Harold had refused to testify upon the ground that any testimony she would give might tend to incriminate her; and with her testimony thus made unavailable, defendant offered her statement in evidence, apparently upon the theory that the statement was thereby rendered competent as a declaration against the interest of the witness. Such offer being refused, defendant later asked permission to introduce the statement upon the specific issue of vexatious refusal to pay. This offer was likewise refused; and the action of the court in both respects is assigned as error on this appeal.

It is to be borne in mind that the fundamental fact issue in the case was that of who had been the aggressor in the fight that had led to Julia Moore's death. If Irma Harold was the aggressor, Julia Moore's death was by accidental means within the coverage of the policy. On the other hand, if the insured, Julia Moore, was herself the aggressor, and if her conduct was of such a character as to have charged her with reasonable anticipation that it would be met by such violent resistance on Irma Harold's part as to have put her in danger of death or great bodily harm, then in that event her death would be regarded as the natural and probable consequence of her own voluntary conduct, and not as having been sustained by accidental means within the purview of the policy. Podesta v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., Mo.App., 150 S.W.2d 596; Sellars v. John Hancock Mut. Life Ins. Co., Mo.App.,...