Court Opinion

ID: 9449886
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 16:26:50.968125+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:02.465478
License: Public Domain

LEONARD P. MOORE, Circuit Judge
(concurring in the result).
I concur in the result. As Judge Clarie found, the employment agreement and the insurance policy required that the insurance proceeds be paid to Jennie Ditmars in the event that Ditmars died before midnight on December 31, 1962. He did. Since many more than the two years of the incontestable clause had elapsed, the cause of his death was immaterial. Gray and Ditmars could have agreed that suicide might void the policy or at least bring about a division of the proceeds such as cash surrender value to the company. They did not. I find no reason to speculate as to the reasons which prompted Ditmars to take his life. The condition of the policy was death. He met that condition. The named beneficiary was entitled to the proceeds.