Court Opinion

ID: 9728302
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 14:04:20.517036+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:47.515826
License: Public Domain

Concurring Opinion by
Mr. Justice Manderino :
I concur and join in the majority opinion. It is true that courts must not rewrite contracts between private parties. This presupposes, however, that all terms of the contract are legal. There has never been any question historically that a bargain will be considered illegal if either its formation or its performance is criminal, tortious, or otherwise opposed to public policy. Restatement of Contracts §512 (1932). A bargain can be illegal because it violates statutory provisions or because it violates the law as developed by the courts for reasons of public policy. A list of all illegal bargains is impossible because the variety of public illegal bargains is almost infinite. Restatement of Contracts §512, Comments a and b (1932).
Historically and traditionally, bargains affecting domestic relationships have been closely scrutinized by the courts. Bargains providing financial inducements for a person to voluntarily accept restrictions on one’s freedom concerning marriage, divorce, sexual relationships and other domestic relationships have frequently been stricken as opposed to public policy. Restatement of Contracts, Topic 10, §581 to §589 (1932). Likewise, financial inducements jeopardizing a person’s life or health may constitute an illegal bargain opposed to public policy. Restatement of Contracts §591 (1932).
*228If the primary purpose of a complete bargain will not be defeated and the bargain can be enforced with the omission of the illegal condition, only the illegal condition is stricken and the other terms of the bargain remain binding and enforceable. Restatement of Contracts §603 (1932).
In this case the bargain was to pay a sum of money to the wife upon the death of her husband and to pay an additional sum upon the death of the husband by accidental means. Provisions referring to the time of death are conditions which do not defeat the primary purpose of the bargain which can be enforced even though the illegal portion is ignored as opposed to public policy.
As the majority opinion has pointed out, the advancement of the medical and pharmaceutical sciences in recent years subjects a person’s time of death to control by the living. Financial inducements of any kind hovering over the family deathbed are as repugnant as other ancient illegal financial inducements affecting domestic relationships.
In matters involving the payment of life insurance, the law has on other occasions been sensitive to prohibiting financial inducements from possibly tempting one person to decide another person’s time of death. Traditionally, we have required the beneficiary of life insurance proceeds to have an insurable interest. We have not wanted strangers to be unduly preoccupied with a person’s time of death. Neither should we permit a member of the family—in this case a wife—to be so preoccupied.