Shipman v. Circle

• Decision Date: 09 April 1903
• Citation: 67 N.E. 83,174 N.Y. 398
• Parties: SHIPMAN v. PROTECTED HOME CIRCLE.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

174 N.Y. 398

67 N.E. 83

SHIPMAN

v.PROTECTED HOME CIRCLE.

Court of Appeals of New York.

April 9, 1903.

Appeal from Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Fourth Department.

Action by Sarah Shipman against the Protected Home Circle. From a judgment of the Appellate Division (73 N. Y. Supp. 594) affirming a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals. Modified.Adelbert Moot, A. W. Williams, A. A. Van Dusen, and W. G. Martin, for appellant.

George J. Dikeman, for respondent.

WERNER, J.

The defendant is a co-operative life insurance corporation, organized under the laws of Pennsylvania, and doing business in this state. The plaintiff is the designated beneficiary in a certificate issued to her husband by the defendant in March, 1897, for the sum of $2,500, payable to the plaintiff upon the death of her husband. The latter came to his death by suicide in April, 1900, in the state of Pennsylvania. When the benefit certificate was issued, neither it nor the by-laws of the defendant contained any provision against suicide; but in May, 1897, the by-laws were amended by adding thereto a section which reads as follows: ‘The benefit certificate issued to a member shall become void and all benefits thereunder shall be forfeited in case the insured shall die by suicide, felonious or otherwise, sane or insane, or by his own hand, sane or insane: provided that in such case there shall be refunded to the beneficiary named in said certificate, the amount of all payments made, together with interest thereon at the rate of three per cent. per annum.’ The application, signed by plaintiff's husband, upon which the benefit certificate herein was issued, contained the following stipulation: ‘I do hereby agree that compliance on my part with all the laws, rules, regulations and requirements now in force or that may hereafter be enacted by the association is the express condition upon which I am entitled to participate in the beneficiary fund, and to the amount named in the constitution and laws of the association. I further agree that should my death be caused by or through intemperance, or any illegal act of my own, all my right, title and interest in the beneficiary fund shall revert to the association.’ When the plaintiff, after her husband's death, demanded payment of the amount specified in the certificate, it was refused by the defendant upon the ground that by committing suicide the insured had forfeited all rights which he or his beneficiary might otherwise have had under the certificate of insurance. Thereupon this action was brought. At trial court it was held that the amended by-law above quoted was valid, but was not intended to apply to outstanding beneficiary certificates, and it was upon this theory that plaintiff was permitted to recover. The judgment entered upon this decision was affirmed at the Appellate Division without written opinion. Upon this appeal the correctness of this judgment is challenged by the defendant upon several grounds: (1) It is contended that under the amended by-law referred to the suicide of the insured worked a forfeiture of all benefits provided for in the contract. (2) It is urged that, even if the amended by-law is not valid in its entirety, it is binding in the case at bar. (3) It is claimed that, if the amended by-law had never been enacted, the plaintiff would not be entitled to recover under the facts of this case. We will briefly consider these points in the order in which they have been stated.

The plaintiff's husband, as we have seen, became a member of the defendant in March, 1897. The amended by-law under discussion was adopted in May, 1897. In the absence of a finding to the contrary, we must assume that its enactment was regular, and in accordance with the provisions of defendant's constitution. By the express terms of the contract between the plaintiff's husband and the defendant, the former agreed to comply with ‘all the laws, rules, regulations, and requirements now in force or that may be hereafter enacted’ by the latter. Under these conditions all by-laws regularly adopted by the defendant became retrospective as well as prospective in their operation upon the plaintiff's husband, except as to rights which had become fixed or vested by the terms of the original contract. In the original contract there was no mention of death by self-destruction or suicide of a member, whether sane or insane. As the death of a member might result from any one of a number of diseases or causes which were not specifically enumerated in the contract, so self-destruction might be the culmination of mental derangement superinduced by causes as uncontrollable as some forms of physical disease. When the death of an insured person is due to such a cause, the insurer is always liable to the beneficiary, unless the particular cause is one which, by the express terms of the contract, is excepted from the risk. As the contract was silent upon the subject of self-destruction by the insured while insane, death from that cause was clearly within its terms. Upon the execution of the contract the insured, therefore, acquired a fixed and vested right to insurance covering that risk. No subsequent amendment of the by-laws could affect that right without the express assent of the insured. This doctrine has recently been reaffirmed by this court in Weber v. Supreme Tent of Knights of Maccabees, 172 N. Y. 490, 65 N. E. 258, and, if we could here end the discussion of this case upon the assumption that plaintiff's husband was insane when he took his life, the Weber Case would be a controlling authority in favor of this plaintiff's right to recover.

But we cannot stop here. The learned trial court has found that the plaintiff's husband committed suicide. There is no finding whether he was sane or insane. For colloquial quial purposes the term ‘suicide’ is at once sufficiently specific and comprehensive to cover all kinds of human self-destruction. But, if the law is to distinguish between the self-destruction of the insane and the self-inflicted death of the sane, insurance contracts must be construed in the light of definitions which express the distinction. Our Penal Code defines suicide as the intentional taking of one's own life (section 172), and the definitions referred to in Weber v. Maccabees, supra, are to the same effect. Intent is of the essence of the act, and this presupposes reason or sanity. Thus the unqualified finding of the learned trial court that plaintiff's husband committed suicide is, in effect, a determination that it was the intentional act of a sane man. Aside from this, however, there is the presumption of sanity which must be entertained in the absence of proof. Insanity cannot be predicated simply upon the act of self-destruction, for human experience has shown that sane men have taken their own lives. To the extent that the amended by-law provides for a forfeiture of contract rights in the event of suicide by the insured while he was sane, it is valid, first, because it invades no vested right of the insured, and, second, because it is a fundamental, though unexpressed, part of the original contract that the insured should not intentionally cause his own death. If we assume, therefore, that the original contract and by-laws were silent upon the subject of suicide by the insured while sane, the amended by-law is valid because there can be no such thing as a vested right to commit suicide, and for the further reason that it is nothing more than the written expression of a provision which the law had read into the contract at its inception.

But the original contract was not silent in this regard. In his application for insurance the plaintiff's husband expressly stipulated that, in case his death should be caused by any illegal act of his own, all his right, title, and interest in the beneficiary fund should revert to the association. At common law, suicide was a crime, which was followed by the forfeiture of the offender's property. In this state it is denominated ‘a grave public wrong’ (Pen. Code, § 173), but, owing to the impossibility of reaching the successful perpetrator, no forfeiture is imposed. Plaintiff's husband came to his death in Pennsylvania. In the absence of evidence upon the subject, it is to be presumed that the common law prevails there. This view of the case leads to the conclusion that in committing suicide the plaintiff's husband was guilty of a crime, and all crime is illegal. It is, to say the least, doubtful whether the rule of the common law, declaring suicide to be malum in se, has been abrogated by the provisions of our Penal Code; but whether we invoke the stern morality of the common law or the more merciful decree of our own statute, which declares suicide to be a ‘grave public wrong,’ it may fairly be called an illegal act within the purview of the language of the contract herein, and, if so, the contract is rendered nugatory by force of its own provisions.

Although the foregoing conclusions are decisive of the case, we think the third defense above referred to presents a question that is fairly raised, and that ought to be decided for the benefit of all concerned in contracts of this kind. What are the plaintiff's rights, if we treat the case as one in which there is no provision, either in the by-laws or the contract, relating to suicide by the insured while sane? We have already suggested that it is an inherent and fundamental part of every such contract that the insured shall not intentionally take his own life. No act so contrary to good morals and the usual course of human nature should be held to be within the contemplation of the parties to a contract for life insurance, unless it is clearly and unequivocally expressed. The...