Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 22.pdf/351

 Suicide and Life Insurance AN ARGUMENT By S. Ross PARKER, B. S., LL.B., OF SEATTLE, WASH. GENERAL discussion of suicide

This, of course, means suicide while

clauses in life insurance policies would be too prolix for publication in a magazine article. This paper will, therefore, discuss the law applicable

sane. In such a case a suicide's policy would be void if payable to the suicide's heirs, whereas if it were payable directly to the same heirs as beneﬁciaries named

to one particular state of circumstances

in the policy, it would not be void.

of suicide by policy holders.

In the absence of any statute to the

If. in such a case, the suicide‘s heirs were young children, then their designa

contrary, a clause in a life insurance

tion in the policy as heirs merely would

policy which states that the assurer will not be liable in the event of the suicide, sane or insane, of the assured,

prevent them from recovering on their parent's policy, whereas, if the parent had used the ingenious foresight neces

is valid.

sary to carry out his most likely in

Generally, the insurance com

pany will, of course, be liable if the

tention, those children might have been

policy states merely that the company will not be liable if the assured die by his own hand, and the assured commits

saved any anxiety of becoming wards

suicide while insane.

(The phrases “die

by his own hand,” “self-destruction,” “take his own life," “suicide," rate,

are adjudged synonymous.)

In other

of the state. There is a maxim of Anglo

Saxon law quite as age-honored as the one generally cited to bolster up the above doctrine, and it is that when the reason of the law ceases the law itself ceases. Is there any meritorious reason

words, to escape liability for the suicide of an insane policy holder, the insurance company must so stipulate in the insurance contract. These propositions

why persons in whose interests a con

are so elementary that there is no appreciable diversity of opinion on them.

designated in a particular manner there

Vhat if there is no provision in the

policy in regard to suicide, and the assured takes his own life while sane? A recent, and authoritative, reference work says: “In the absence of any express exception as to suicide, or self

destruction, the beneﬁciary is not de feated by the wrongful act of the assured in taking his own life, such defense being available only as against the assured or his personal representa~ tives.”1

tract has been demonstrably, though not expressly, made cannot have the bene ﬁts of that contract because they are in?

The situation is further aided by

that one of the basic maxims of our law which declares that that is a cer tainty which can be reduced to a certainty. Does the slight diﬂiculty of showing who are the heirs in some cases justify such a classiﬁcation of their rights as to deprive them of bene ﬁts which under the same state of cir cumstances are allowed to go to others, re gardless of the probable preference of the one whose death gives rise to the beneﬁts? This paper is not, by the way, an

argument that beneﬁciaries should pro ‘25 Cyc, 881, citing decisions in six states: contra, 94 Fed. 729.

ﬁt by the voluntary suicide of a sane