Moore v. Northwestern Mut. Life Ins. Co.
| Decision Date | 21 June 1906 |
| Parties | MOORE v. NORTHWESTERN MUT. LIFE INS. CO. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Wm H. Bent, for plaintiff.
Horace G. Allen and Norman M. Nye, for defendant.
This is an action of contract on a policy of life insurance issued to Walter T. Moore on May 27, 1904, by a foreign corporation doing business here, under an agent duly authorized, and the policy was delivered here. Both parties have argued the case on the assumption that the policy is a Massachusetts contract, and we so treat it.
On July 29, 1904, Walter T. Moore, by virtue of the power reserved to him in the policy, assigned the same to his wife Faustina M Moore, the plaintiff in this action.
The answer contained a general denial and set up in defense that Walter T. Moore died by his own hand, within one year from the date of the policy, and also set up the following agreement contained in the application for the insurance signed by Walter T. Moore: 'And I do further agree that if within two years from the date of said policy I shall pass south of the Tropic of Cancer, or * * * shall within one year from the date of said policy whether sane or insane die by my own hand, then and in every such case any policy issued on this application shall be null and void.'
The plaintiff filed a replication to the new matter set up in the answer, denying that the application complied with Rev. Laws, c. 118, § 73, and did not form part of the policy, and denied that Walter T. Moore died by his own hand.
Later the plaintiff amended the replication, by adding thereto the following clause: 'And the plaintiff further says that if the defendant shall introduce evidence tending to show that the death of Walter T. Moore was self-inflicted or that the instrumentality was operated by his hand, then the plaintiff says that the death was caused under such a combination of circumstances that it was not the result of the will and intention of the deceased, adapting the means to the end and contemplating the physical nature and effects of the act; that it was the result of a blind and irresistible impulse over which the will of the deceased had no control and was not an act of volition, that he did not know or understand the nature and consequences of the act.'
This amendment was demurred to and the demurrer sustained.
At the trial in the superior court there was evidence tending to show that Mr. Moore was in financial difficulty in Lowell; that he left Lowell on November 22, 1904, the day on which the directors and some of the creditors of the Lowell Coal Company, of which Moore was manager and which was in financial difficulty, were to have a meeting, went to his summer place in Amherst, N. H., which he had closed for the season about a month before, but which was then occupied by his man looking after his live stock and other property there, arrived in the afternoon, talked with his hired man about his troubles and the possibility of having to sell his place, directed his man to go for his team to drive him to the station, and then went into the house alone; that a short time thereafter, after waiting for him to come out, his man went into the house, passed through the dining room and kitchen into the woodshed, where he found Mr. Moore lying on his back on the ground, dead; that there was a rifle in an iron vise at one end of a work bench, and attached to the trigger was a string which apparently had been passed through a hasp; that Moore had been shot through the body and the bullet was found imbedded on the opposite side of the shop at a spot toward which the rifle was pointed; that several hours thereafter his man found lying upon Moore's overcoat in the dining room a piece of paper in Moore's handwriting but not signed by him, bidding good-bye to his mother and wife, and giving directions as to where to telephone.
During the course of the trial the plaintiff offered in evidence the original policy expressly excluding from his offer two photographic copies annexed thereto by attachment, one of which was headed 'Application to the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.' The other photographic copy was of the declaration made to the medical examiner. The defendant objected to the offer and the court stated, 'I will allow the entire contract put in, and I will rule later upon the effect of the application,' to which ruling the plaintiff excepted. Subsequently the defendant offered the original application, which the court admitted against the objection and exception of the plaintiff. Neither the original application nor the copy had upon it in large, bold-faced type, nor in any form of type or writing, the words: 'Under the laws of Massachusetts, each applicant for a policy of insurance to be issued hereunder is entitled to be furnished with a copy of this application attached to any policy issued thereon.'
The plaintiff made six requests for instructions, which were not given.
The jury returned a verdict for the defendant; and to the question 'Did the deceased Walter T. Moore die intentionally by his own hand?' the jury answered 'Yes.'
1. The first question which it is necessary to consider is whether the application forms part of the policy. This in various ways is the subject of the six requests which were refused in the court below. The answer to the question depends upon the construction to be given to the following words which form a part of the Rev. Laws, c. 118, § 73: 'Every policy which contains a reference to the application of the insured, either as a part of the policy or as having any bearing thereon, must have attached thereto a correct copy of the application, and unless so attached the same shall not be considered a part of the policy or received in evidence. Each application for such policy shall have printed upon it in large boldfaced type the following words: 'Under the laws of Massachusetts, each applicant for a policy of insurance to be issued hereunder is entitled to be furnished with a copy of this application attached to any policy issued thereon.”
We are of the opinion that it was the intention of the Legislature to inform the insured that he was entitled to have a copy of the application attached to his policy, and that when this was done, the application formed a part of the contract although the words required to be printed in boldfaced type were omitted. If the Legislature had...
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