Podesta v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co.
| Decision Date | 08 April 1941 |
| Docket Number | No. 25626.,25626. |
| Parties | PODESTA v. METROPOLITAN LIFE INS. CO. |
| Court | Missouri Court of Appeals |
Appeal from St. Louis Circuit Court; Charles B. Williams, Judge.
"Not to be reported in State Reports."
Action by Alma Podesta against the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company on a certificate issued under a group employees' accidental death insurance policy. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals.
Reversed.
Fordyce, White, Mayne, Williams & Hartman and R. E. LaDriere, all of St Louis (Harry Cole Bates, of New York City, of counsel), for appellant.
Bass & Bass and John P. Griffin, all of St. Louis, for respondent.
BENNICK, Commissioner.
This is an action by plaintiff beneficiary to recover the accidental death benefit provided by an individual certificate which had been issued by defendant to her husband, Harold J. Podesta, under and subject to the terms and conditions of a group accidental death and dismemberment policy theretofore taken out by Podesta's employer, the Monsanto Chemical Company, for the benefit of its employees.
The sole point at issue in the case was whether, under the facts, Podesta's death came within the coverage of the policy, which insured against the results of bodily injuries sustained directly and independently of all other causes by violent and accidental means.
Tried to a jury in the Circuit Court of the City of St. Louis, a verdict of nine jurors was returned in favor of plaintiff, and against defendant, for the sum of $1,220.91, representing the aggregate of the accidental death benefit of $1,000, with interest due to date of trial. Judgment was entered in conformity with the verdict; and defendant's appeal to this court has followed in the usual course.
The insured came to his death in the early morning of May 21, 1936, as the result of a gunshot wound which he received in the course of a struggle between him and plaintiff in the single room in which they lived at 1725 South Jefferson Avenue, in the City of St. Louis.
In undertaking to make her case, plaintiff did not stand upon the presumption of accidental death from the mere proof of the insured's violent death, but on the contrary elected to testify to the complete facts of the occurrence leading up to the fatal result.
According to her version of the facts, when her husband came home from work in the evening of May 20th, a dispute arose between him and her over his refusal to give her $1.50 with which to purchase two aprons. During their entire married life of three years she had been forced to quarrel with him frequently over his unwillingness to supply her with money for payment of the rent and the like; and on this particular occasion, not only did he refuse to give her the money for the aprons, but he insolently told her to go out and get it any way she could, and he didn't care how.
Plaintiff and the insured retired about ten o'clock, but after a little while the insured got up and went over to the window where he sat down partly clothed in stubborn disregard of plaintiff's pleading that he leave the window and come back to bed.
Plaintiff finally dozed off to sleep, but about three or four o'clock in the morning was awakened by a "stinging" on her body, and in the dim light in the room discovered her husband hovering over her with a razor with which he had attacked and cut her on both legs while she lay asleep in the bed. Crying out, "Oh, Harold, you cut me and I am bleeding to death!" he replied, "Bleed to death, I don't give a damn, I am going to finish you!"
With that he slashed her left arm in two different places, at which she jumped out of bed and started with him towards the dresser to get possession of a revolver which had lain in the top drawer for some five or six weeks after she had brought it up from Festus, Missouri, where she and the insured had lived before coming to St. Louis. Plaintiff testified that she had brought the revolver up from Festus at the insured's insistence that he might need it on nights when he gambled as was his frequent habit; and there seems to be no doubt that he knew of its location in the dresser drawer as was evidenced by the fact that he too ran towards the dresser at the very moment that plaintiff started for it.
Plaintiff succeeded in getting the revolver out of the dresser drawer, and having done so, undertook to run out of the room, but found the door locked against her. The insured thereupon grabbed hold of her, and began to scuffle with her for possession of the gun, which was alternately dropped and picked up by first one and then the other of them as the desperate struggle was carried on about the room.
Plaintiff testified that when she got the revolver, it was not her intention to shoot the insured, and that she had no recollection of how or by whom it happened to be discharged. She recalled, however, that a large rocking chair was upset in the struggle, and that it was as she and the insured both fell over on the bed that a single shot was fired from the revolver.
Other evidence disclosed that the bullet struck the insured in the back of the head and that while his pulse was still found to be beating when the people on the first floor rushed up to the room in response to plaintiff's call for help, death had occurred by the time of the arrival of the police, who made the usual investigation of the occurrence, and then removed the body to the city morgue.
The chief point in controversy on this appeal is whether plaintiff made a submissible case for the jury so as to have warranted the court in refusing defendant's request for a peremptory instruction at the close of all the evidence.
In support of its insistence that plaintiff made no case for submission to the jury, defendant...
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