Stuckum v. Metro. Life Ins. Co.

• Decision Date: 24 February 1938
• Docket Number: No. 39.,39.
• Citation: Stuckum v. Metro. Life Ins. Co., 283 Mich. 297, 277 N.W. 891 (Mich. 1938)
• Parties: STUCKUM v. METROPOLITAN LIFE INS. CO.
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court

283 Mich. 297

277 N.W. 891

STUCKUM

v.METROPOLITAN LIFE INS. CO.

No. 39.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

Feb. 24, 1938.

Action on a life insurance policy by Bertha Stuckum against the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals.

Affirmed.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Van Buren County; Glenn E. Warner, judge.

Argued before the Entire Bench.

Gore, Harvey & Fisher, of Benton Harbor, for appellant.

Earl L. Burhans, of Paw Paw, for appellee.

McALLISTER, Justice.

Plaintiff's son was killed by a discharge of a shotgun and she sues defendant as the beneficiary of a life insurance policy, which was taken out by deceased. On trial before a jury plaintiff received verdict and judgment for the amount due according to the terms of the life insurance policy. On appeal defendant claims that the evidence conclusively established that deceased came to his death by suicide; and because it is claimed that the policy in question excluded liability in case of suicide, the court erred in refusing to direct a verdict of no cause of action.

Merle Stuckum, the deceased, a young man who lived with his family, was a truck driver and drove such vehicles usually during the nighttime. On Saturday night, September 5, 1936, he went out with a group of friends to a dance and beer garden. He had been drinking beer before he started on the party, and during the course of the evening he continued to drink beer. While he was with his friends, an altercation took place, resulting in the plaintiff's decedent trying to fight with one of his friends, because of an argument with regard to the latter's wife.

One witness states that deceased afterward wanted to go to another place to dance and became angry when the party refused to go; that he finally said he was tired of everything; that his family interfered with his affairs; and that he was going to end everything.

After leaving the group at 2 o'clock the following morning, deceased went home and asked his mother if she did not want to drive with him to Kalamazoo to see her daughter. He further asked her if on the following week she would wash his clothes which he had left in another village, and, upon her agreement to do so, he drove his car to the village and returned with his soiled clothes. He then had some conversation with his mother and discussed the crows which had been bothering them on the farm. He told his mother that he was going into the woods to shoot crows and at 5 o'clock in the morning left the house with his shotgun.

A few hours later, at 7:30 o'clock he was found dead in his automobile, sitting upright behind the wheel, shot through the right side. The front right-hand window of the car was open and the shot-gun was found lying on the ground about nine feet from the car. No one heard the shot or knew how he was killed. The coroner signed a certificate of accidental death.

Experiments later made by the police showed that the gun, if resting on a stump, upon being fired, would recoil through the air about seven feet. In the rear of the car, behind the front seat, there was found a jack handle and this circumstance has given rise to defendant's theory that deceased held the gun against his side, resting it through the open window and pushed the trigger with the jack handle. Plaintiff's theory is that the deceased was pushing the gun out through the window with the muzzle toward him when it accidentally ‘went off.’

The trial court submitted the question of whether deceased had committed suicide to the jury for determination as a question of fact; and plaintiff was awarded verdict and judgment.

Defendant claims that as a matter of law the court should have directed the jury to return a judgment of no cause of action, for the reason that the evidence conclusively showed that the deceased had committed suicide.

Defendant's chief reliance is placed upon the testimony of Palma Randall, one of the members of the party at the tavern, who testified that deceased had told her on the evening before his death that he was ‘tired of everything’ and was ‘going to end everything.’ The testimony of this witness was flatly contradicted by others who were present at the time deceased is alleged to have made this statement. The sister of deceased testified that she went with her husband to see Mrs. Randall about two weeks after the death of her brother and that at that time Mrs. Randall ‘said that she never was so surprised in all her life as when she heard of Merle's death. She also said at that time that she didn't believe he did it. * * * If he did do it, he never so much as ever mentioned it to her.’

Much significance is attached by defendant to the finding...