Court Opinion

ID: 9750602
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 15:10:18.7189+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:26:13.933481
License: Public Domain

Concurring Opinion by
Mr. Justice Musmanno:
The person who drives his automobile at 100 miles per hour on a congested highway is, in metaphorical language, “committing suicide,” but if he is killed it does not legally or logically follow that he actually intended to take his life. Many, if not perhaps most, fatalities of a violent character (where crime is not involved), are due to poor reasoning, neglectful conduct, or a reckless attitude on the part of the deceased. An insomniac takes too many sleeping pills because he yearns to erase with a weary arm the slate of exhaustion, pain or sorrow; the swimmer dives into a shallow pool, seeking the exhilaration of cooling waters to drown the fatigue of a tired and weary body; a pedestrian runs across the street in front of a speeding streetcar because he sees on the other side of the thoroughfare a dear friend whose companionship will be medicine to his loneliness and despair. Where death results in such cases the result is accidental even though the deceased voluntarily rode the thunderbolt which killed him.
Andrew Beckham took an overdose of narcotics. Anyone who has read the classic Confessions of an English Opium Eater by Thomas DeQuincy will understand the beguiling heaven toward which Beckham was directing his steps as he followed the inviting primrose path into the soothing dreams of nepenthe.
*119The Travelers Insurance Company, in their brief, admit that “It is conceivable that Andrew Beckham intended to take the overdose for a stronger reaction, effect or ‘kick’ hoping it would not kill him.” With that concession it was for the jury to decide whether Beckham’s death was accidental or intentional.
The Insurance Company says that the plaintiff had the burden to prove that Beckham did not intend to Mil himself. The jury was properly instructed as to the burden of proof and its verdict that Beckham did not voluntarily take passage over the river Styx is supported not only by the transcript of the trial, but also by the imperishable record of man’s odyssey through life which irrefutably establishes that no one really wants to die.
Andrew Beckham wanted to live, if only to dive again into the shallow pool of artificial exhilaration, if only to cross the street to embrace the morphine sweetheart of heart’s ease. He used bad judgment, he was reckless, he did not want to bring bereavement and sadness to his mother, and it is comforting to know that she will not be denied the money he provided to help her along the remainder of her lonely journey when he, even through his own negligence, involuntarily left her.