Coffey v. Home Life Insurance

This was an action upon a life insurance policy, which contained this condition : “In case he” (the person whose life was covered) “shall die by his own hand . . then the said company shall not be liable for the payment of the sum insured, or any part thereof.” Upon the trial, evidence was given, tending to prove the following facts: Just previous to the

taking of the policy, Coffey, the person whose life was insured for the. benefit of his wife, the plaintiff, was insolvent and out of business, and had a wife and several children dependent upon him for their support. While thus situated, he procured insurances upon his life to the amount of some $40,000, mostly in favor of his wife, borrowing the money from his friends to pay the premiums thereon upon the false statement that he wanted the same for his expenses in carrying into effect some pretended land sales. A short time after he effected those insurances, Coffey took his passage on a steamboat from Louisville to Cincinnati, where during the trip he went into his stateroom, and although the weather was quite warm, locked and fastened the doors and windows. After the arrival of the boat at Cincinnati, the next morning, the door of the stateroom was broken open, when he was found to be in a comatose state, and the next night he died from the effects, as then appeared on examination, of an overdose of morphine. Other evidence was also given of circumstances which tended to prove that his death was caused by his own voluntary act in a sane state of mind, and in pursuance of a preconceived plan.

The judge, before whom the cause was tried, charged the jury inter alia, thus : When a man takes the life of another, and alleges insanity as an excuse and defence, he is met by the presumption of law that he was sane, and he must remove or rebut such presumption, by showing affirmatively, and by competent and sufficient proof, that he was insane when he committed the deed.

I therefore charge you as matter of law, that as affecting this case, you must presume that the deceased when he toofc his life was not in a sound state of mind.

It is, however, but a mere presumption, and may be removed by evidence. But as I have said before, the burthen of removing it lies upon the defendants, and it is for you to say whether they have done so.

The question raised by the exceptions to this portion of the charge of the learned judge is somewhat novel and important. It has long been a well-settled rule in the law of evidence, that where the deed or act of a party is sought to be avoided on the ground of his insanity, he will be presumed to be of sound mind until the contrary shall appear, and therefore that the burthen of proving such party to have been insane, rests upon him who alleges it. Indeed, the rule that sanity is to be presumed until the contrary be proven, is a general one, applicable to all cases, and its reason is obvious.

It is founded upon the fact that general sanity is the natural and ordinary condition of the human mind, and that mankind, considered as a class or whole, are sane (the exceptions being comparatively few and rare), followed by the natural conclusion that each individual may well be assumed to be like the great mass of his fellow-men in that regard, unless proven to be otherwise (1 Greenl. Ev. §42; 2 Id. §§ 689, 373; 3 Id. § 5 ; 2 Kent's Com. § 451; Bliss on Life Ins. § 378 ; McNaghtin’s Case, 10 Clarke & Fin. 210; Gardner v. Gardner, 22 Wend. 526 . Aside from extrinsic facts and circmn

Ho presumption that insanity exists in the case supposed, can be deduced from the mere fact that the death of the person was caused by his own physical act; for every legal presumption of a fact of that character must be founded upon and derived from some other fact or facts with which it is usually or always found, as the result of general experience and knowledge, to be connected in a certain relation (1 Greenl. Ev. § 33).

There can be no doubt, however, that if courts were at liberty to assume as a fact established by experience, that all persons who intentionally deprive themselves of life are insane, or diseased in mind, or even such a majority of them, that it might properly be said that persons who thus destroy their lives are, as a general rule, insane, and that sanity is a mere exception; the legal conclusion that insanity or derangement of mind must be presumed in every case in which it appeared that the man intentionally caused Ms own death, would necessarily follow. But that fact is not so established. Hot only is the history of the world in former times filled with instances in which great and sound-minded men, such as Cato and Hannibal, have committed suicide, and where others have for the purpose of saving their estates from forfeiture, submitted themselves to the peine forte et dure, but the most learned men of the present day in this branch of mental science, not mere lawyers, are still groping for the truth in the twilight of doubt and peradventure. Indeed, it is by no means settled, either among educated men or in the common mind, that even a majority of those who deprive themselves

The most that can be said is, that inasmuch as many, and perhaps most persons who destroy their own lives, are insane at the time, the fact of such self-destruction of itself wholly removes the presumption of sanity (see Cooper v. Mass., etc., Ins. Company, 102 Mass. R. 227 ; Terry v. Mutual Life Ins. Company, 1 Dillon’s R. 403).

Judgment reversed with costs, and new trial directed.

I amobliged reluctantly to differ with the learned judge, in charging the jury that the law presumed that a man was insane who killed himself.

First. I do not think the law has made any presumption on that specific subject. The only presumption it has made on the general subject, is, that every man is sane until the contrary is shown.

Second. A judge, as such, cannot determine, nor has he the means to determine, whether an individual case of suicide is the result of insanity—especially when the cause of the insanity is to be confined to suicide. Therefore he cannot 'make a presumption on the subject, which is a generalization, more or less perfect, from individual cases.

I think the judgment should be reversed.

This is an action upon a policy of insurance for five thousand dollars, made by the defendants upon the life of Benjamin S. Coffee in favor of the latter’s wife, the plaintiff in the action. The policy, among other provisions to avoid it, contained a clause that, in case the assured should die by Ms own hand, the company should not be liable for the payment of the sum insured or any part thereof. .In

The learned judge who presided at the trial was correct, therefore, in charging that, if Coffee, at the time he took the poison, was insane, if he was then laboring under either permanent or temporary insanity, he did not die by his own hand within the true meaning of that phrase, and that consequently there was no breach of the condition of the policy in that respect. Indeed, no error whatever seems to have been committed in giving and refusing instructions to the jury, provided the learned judge was justified in refusing to charge, that the presumption of sanity attaches to the commission of suicide, and in charging, in place thereof, as follows:

“The law does not and cannot presume that a man “ in the full possession of his mental faculties, in that “normal condition of mind which we call sanity, will “ deliberately take his own life; and therefore, so far as “ there is any presumption, it favors insanity at the time “of committing an act of self-destruction. * * * *

“I therefore charge you as matter of law that there is “no such presumption, and that as affecting this case “you must presume that the deceased, when he took “ his life, was not in a sound state of mind.

“It is, however, but a mere presumption, and may “be removed by evidence. But as I have said before,

“the burthen of removing it lies upon the defendants, “ and it is for you to say whether they have done so.

“ The defendants, to strengthen their position that the “assured died by his own deliberate and criminal act, 16 have given some evidence which they claim shows- a “motive, and, as they say, a sufficient motive for the “ criminal act. They have shown that the assured was “in a pecuniarily embarrassed condition ; was in debt, “and prosecuted and harassed by his creditors. They “ have also shown that at or about the time he effected “ the insurance in this case, he procured other policies “ upon his life in other companies, all for the benefit of “his wife, and amounting in the aggregate to forty “thousand dollars; and they have further proved the “substance of a conversation between the deceased and “a lawyer of Cincinnati, in which he sought information and advice respecting the legal effect of the con- ‘£ dition against self-destruction in the policy.

“These facts and circumstances are submitted to you “ as tending to show, as is claimed, a motive, and there“by to repel the presumption of insanity, and it is for “you to say whether you believe they are sufficient.”

The question thus presented is an important, novel, and difficult one. It is an open one in this State, and as the few adjudications made elsewhere upon it (Nimick v. The Mutual Life Ins. Co., 10 Am. Law Reg., N. S. 101; Terry v. The Mutual Life Ins. Co., 1 Dillon, 403; St. Louis Mutual Life Ins. Co. v. Graves, reported in 6 W. P. D. Bush, 268, and also in N. Y. Daily Transcript of March 7th, 1871, in which last-named case the Kentucky Court of Appeals stood equally divided) are conflicting,' it must be decided on principle. Fortunately, in this case its consideration is not embar ■ rassed by other questions, which are usually connected with it and relate to the different forms or species of insanity known to the law. For the charge has not been excepted to in that respect; nor has the definition

Freed, therefore, from all embarrassments which the intervention of other questions might occasion, I think the examination of the point at issue may be commenced in the most fitting manner, by considering for a moment what IAfe is. The definitions of it given by philosophers and biologists are almost innumerable. But none of them commends itself so much to my mind, as that given by Professor Herbert Spencer, who deservedly ranks in scientific circles as one of the greatest of modem thinkers. It is, that Life consists in the definite combination of heterogeneous changes, both simultaneous and successive, in correspondence with external co-existences and sequences, or in other words, in the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations. Consequently, Life is a continuous struggle. All vital actions, considered not separately, but in their ensemble, have for their final purpose the balancing of certain outer processes, by certain inner processes. There are increasing external forces tending to bring the matter of which organic bodies consist, into that state of stable equilibrium displayed by inorganic bodies ; there are internal forces by which this tendency is constantly antagonized ; and the perpetual changes which constitute Life, may be regarded as incidental to the maintenance of the antagonism. So strong is this antagonism in the human organism, that while there is life there is hope. The strength in the natural, sane man, of the love of life is indeed proverbial. Drowning men will catch at straws. All that a man has, will he give in exchange for his life.

From individual organisms thus struggling for life, small aggregations were formed, which soon felt the

But in case of suicide, the reason for the rule fails, and the necessity for its application disappears. Suicide is self-destruction. It is a self-inflicted, violent, and summary severance of relations, contrary to the ordinary laws of Nature. It is a refusal to obey Nature’s law, and, therefore, in the light of the present state of science, such an unnatural proceeding, that eminent men of great learning and research insist that suicide is necessarily an insane act, while others contend that it is only prima facie evidence of insanity. The first proposition has never been accepted to any great extent; but the second is quite prevalent among scientific men, and is daily gaining ground (Winslow’s Anatomy of Suicide, ch. 11, p. 237; Esguirol's Maladies Mentales, vol. 1, pp. 559, 560; Ellis on Insanity, London Edition of 1838, pp. 114,115; Prichard, London Edition of 1842, pp. 134, 141; Bernard & Tuke on Insanity, Philadelphia Edition, 1858, pp. 88, 153, 202, 204, 331; Dean’s Medical Jurispr. pp. 508, 509).

As,the law should always keep step with the great truths that are unearthed from time to time by science, the courts, upon these authorities, might well hold, and in my judgment should hold, in a case like the present, that—while upon the whole case the burden of proof is upon the plaintiff to satisfy the jury that a loss has occurred under the policy, that is to say, that the person whose life is covered by the policy was insane at the time of the perpetration of the deed within the true definition of that term in the law—the presumption

As long as the presumption of insanity is thus applied and enforced, harmony will prevail between science and law, and no evil results can accrue to society. For the danger to be dreaded does not lie in the presumption, which, as such, may be rebutted and overcome by proof in each case, but in the doctrine of moral and emotional insanity, and of temporary insane impulses ; or, to be still more specific, in the vague and unsatisfactory definition sometimes laid down by the courts for that species of insanity and that class of impulses.

The fact, which is generally alluded to, to sustain the opposite doctrine, that men of historic fame, such as Themistocles, Demosthenes, Hannibal, and Cato, committed suicide, without the imputation or suspicion of impelling insanity, cannot have much weight at this late day. Insanity, as now understood, was not known then, nor were the unerring and immutable laws of Hature then known and understood to the same perfection as they are now. So it may also be safely assumed that each of these men shared the mythological notions of his age. The ancients seem very generally to have arrogated to themselves the right to destroy their own lives, whenever, in their judgment, it should be proper. Pliny was accustomed to term it the greatest privilege the gods had left in the power of men, amid the calamities of human life. Judge Robertson,

Nor can I appreciate the force of the reasoning of the learned chief justice in this case, in first denying that insanity can be presumed, and then holding, that the most that can be said is, that inasmuch as many, and perhaps most, persons who destroy their lives are insane at the time, the fact of such self-destruction, of itself, wholly removes the presumption of sanity. If suicide is the unnatural proceeding I have shown it to be, and the fact of self-destruction wholly removes the presumption of sanity, because many, and perhaps most, .persons who destroy their lives are insane at the time, I can see no escape from the conclusion, that the naked and unexplained fact of suicide must be prima facie evidence of the existence of insanity at the time of the perpetration of the act.

I have also carefully examined the recent case of Fowler v. The Mutual Life Ins. Co., 4 Lans. 202 , but do not consider it in point here. It seems to have been determined, on the strength of the declarations made by the assured shortly before his death, and which, in the judgment of the court, conclusively established the fact, that his subsequent suicide was

Being unable to discover any error in the instructions given and refused on the trial, and defendants’ exceptions to the -admission and exclusion of testimony by the court having been found, on examination, to be untenable, I am of the opinion that the judgment and order appealed from should be affirmed with costs.