Case ID: pa_203/html/0129-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Per Cttriam,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Keefer, Appellant, v. Modern Woodmen of America.
    
      Insurance —Life insurance — Suicide.
    No recovery can be had upon a policy of life insurance where the insured has killed himself, if the policy contains the following provision: “If the member holding this certificate shall die within three years after becoming a member of this society as a result of any means or act which, had such means or act been used or done by him while in possession of all his natural faculties unimpaired, would be deemed self-destruction, then this certificate shall be null and void and of no effect.”
    Argued April 28, 1902.
    Appeal, No. 396, Jan. T., 1901, by plaintiff, from judgment of C. P. Cumberland Co., Sept. T., 1900, No. 194, for defendant non obstante veredicto in case of Alice Grace Keefer to use of John Hays v. Modern Woodmen of America.
    Before MoCcllum C. J., Mitchell, Dean, Fell and Potter, JJ.
    Affirmed.
    Assumpsit upon a policy of life insurance on the life of John A. Keefer. Before E. W. Biddle, P. J.
    At the trial the court directed a verdict in favor of the plaintiff for $3,376, subject to the following questions reserved:
    1. Is the defendant a fraternal beneficiary societj-, or is it an assessment life insurance company?
    2. Does the fact that John A. Keefer, the insured, committed suicide on August 18, 1899, whilst insane, relieve the defendant of liability in the present action ?
    Subsequently the court filed an opinion in which it held that the defendant was an assessment life insurance company in so far as the rights of the plaintiff were concerned. As to the second point reserved the opinion was in part as follows :
    The parties have filed an agreement cencerning the death of John A. Keefer, as follows: “It is further stipulated that said John A. Keefer came to his death by his own hands, and not by accident, his death resulting from a gun shot wound; that he was insane when he committed the act which caused his death and that he was impelled thereto as a result of his insanity.”
    In Pennsylvania no recovery can be had upon a policy of life insurance, where the insured has killed himself whilst insane, if the policy contains a condition that it shall be void in case the person insured shall die of suicide “ sane or insane: ” Tritschler v. Keystone Mut. Benefit Association, 180 Pa. 205; Sargeant v. National Life Insurance Co., 189 Pa. 341. The benefit certificate before us contains substantially such a provision. The language, “If the member holding this certificate shall die within three years after becoming a member of this society, as a result of any means or act, which, had such means or act been used or done by him while in possession of all his natural faculties unimpaired, would be deemed self-destruction, then this certificate shall be null and void and of no effect,” clearly includes the death of the insured by self-destruction whether he was sane or insane at the time. Therefore, as was said in Sargeant v. Insurance Co., supra, the crucial question is, “ Did he die of his own act ? If he did, that kind of a death was a risk against which the policy did not insure. It was outside of the policy, and hence the policy was inapplicable.” Governed by the established doctrine on this subject, the second reserved question is answered in the affirmative.
    And now, December 10, 1901, in conformity with the foregoing opinion, the verdict of the jury is set aside, and it is ordered that judgment be entered in favor of the defendant, non obstante veredicto, upon payment of the jury fee.
    
      Error assigned was in entering judgment for defendants non obstante veredicto.
    
      John Hays, of Hays Hays, with him W. E. Sadler, for appellant.
    
      J. W. White, E. B. Wiehersham and Wetzel Hambleton, for appellee.
    May 19, 1902:
   Per Cttriam,

The clause of the benefit certificate relating to suicide by the insured was properly construed, and the judgment is affirmed for the reasons stated in the opinion.