Court Opinion

ID: 9418958
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:43:47.579637+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:04:42.558999
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Black,
dissenting.
The judgment below rests upon an insurance policy contract made in Butte, Montana. Plaintiff filed suit for more than $3,000 in a Montana state court, and the insurance company—because it was not a Montana corporation—was able to remove the suit to the Federal District Court. Plaintiff’s judgment in the District Court was affirmed by the Court of Appeals. This Court now reverses plaintiff’s judgment because the District Court instructed the jury that—evidence having established the death of the insured by violent and external means—the law presumed from these facts that the death “was not voluntary and . . . the defendant must overcome this presumption and satisfy the jury by a preponderance of *173the evidence, that his death was voluntary. . . .” The policy of insurance was a Montana contract and even though the company was able to remove plaintiff’s case to a Federal court, I believe the plaintiff’s rights should be determined by Montana law. Under Montana law I believe the above instructions were proper.
The Supreme Court of Montana has said:1
“Where, as here, death is shown as the result of external and violent means and the issue is whether it was due to accident or suicide, the presumption is in favor of accident.”
The majority agree with the Montana law up to this point, saying:
“Upon the fact of violent death without more, the presumption, i. e., the applicable rule of law, required the inference of death by accident rather than by suicide.”
At this point, agreement ends between the rule here declared by the majority and the law of Montana.
Under Montana law the presumption that violent death was accidental and not suicidal continues and does not disappear unless the evidence “all points to suicide . . . with such certainty as to preclude any other reasonable hypothesis”; and the presumption continues for the jury’s consideration except “. . . when the evidence points overwhelmingly to suicide as the cause of death.”2
*174Contrary to this clear statement by the Montana Supreme Court is the different rule clearly announced by the majority here in holding that the presumption disappears after the insurance company introduced evidence merely “sufficient to- sustain a finding that the death was not due to accident.”
This Court does not find that the evidence in this case excludes every other reasonable hypothesis but suicide or that all of the evidence points “unerringly to suicide as the cause of death.”3 On the contrary the majority opinion states:
“We find it [the evidence] sufficient to sustain a verdict for or against either party. Defendant was not entitled to a mandatory instruction.”
It is obvious that the majority here declare a rule based neither on Montana law nor federal statute. This federal judicial rule must none the less be followed in suits on insurance policies tried in federal courts. The result *175is that suits on policies for less than $3,000 tried in state courts will frequently be decided by rules different from the rule which governs similar suits tried in federal courts because they involve more than $3,000. In an orderly and consistent system of jurisprudence, it is important that the same law should fix and control the right of recovery on substantially identical contracts made in the same jurisdiction and under the same circumstances. Neither the company nor the policyholder should obtain an advantage by the application of a different law governing the contract merely because the case can be removed to a federal court.
It was to avoid such results—among other reasons— that § 725, U. S. C., Title 28, was passed. It provides:
“The laws of the several States, except where the Constitution, treaties, or statutes of the United States otherwise require or provide, shall be regarded as rules of decision in trials at common law, in the courts of the United States, in cases where they apply.”
In this case, the law determining the burden of proof as to suicide affects the substantial rights of the parties.4 Substantial rights arising from an insurance contract are governed by the law of the state where the contract is made.5 Since the court below instructed the jury in accordance with the law of Montana, I do not believe the charge constituted reversible error.
Nor can I agree that we should approve a general rule governing trials in federal courts which in my judgment transfers jury functions to judges. The effect of the decision here is to give the trial judge the right to decide when sufficient evidence has been introduced to take from the jury the right to find accidental death from proof of *176death by violent and external means. This inevitably follows if the presumption, or right' of the jury to infer death by accident, “disappears” whenever the judge believes sufficient evidence of suicide has been introduced.
Stripped of discussions of legal formulas designated as “presumptions” and “burden of proof,” the net result of thei rule of “disappearing presumptions” is that trial judges in federal courts (irrespective of state rules) have the power to determine when sufficient “substantial evidence” has been produced to justify taking from the jury the right to render a verdict on evidence which—had the judge not found it overcome by contradictory evidence— would have justified a verdict. The judge exercises this power as a “trier of fact” although evidence, previously introduced- and sufficient to support a verdict, has neither been excluded nor withdrawn.
Proof of death by external and violent means has uniformly been held to establish death by accident. The extreme improbability of suicide is complete justification for a finding of death from accident under these circumstances. While it has been said that this proof of accidental death was based on “presumption,” in reality— whatever words or formulas are used—what is meant is that a litigant has offered adequate evidence to establish accidental death. To attribute this adequacy of proof to a “presumption” does not authorize or empower the judge to say that this “adequate proof” (identical with legal “presumption”) has “disappeared.” If the evidence offered by plaintiff provides adequate proof of accidental death upon which a jury’s verdict can be sustained, mere contradictory evidence cannot overcome the original “adequate proof” unless the authority having the constitutional power to weigh the evidence and decide the facts believes the contradictory evidence has overcome the original proof. The jury—not the judge—should decide when there has been “substantial” evidence which overcomes *177the previous adequate proof. Here, this Court holds that at the conclusion of plaintiff’s evidence the jury had adequate proof upon which to find accidental death, and which would authorize a verdict that insured died as a result of accident, but also holds that, after subsequent contradictory evidence of defendant, the judge (not the jury) could decide that plaintiff’s adequate proof (presumption) had “disappeared” or had been overcome by "this subsequent contradictory testimony. This took from the jury the right to decide the weight and effect of this subsequent contradictory evidence. Such a rule gives parties a trial by judge, but does not preserve, in its entirety, that trial by jury guaranteed by the Seventh Amendment to the Constitution. I cannot agree to a conclusion which, I believe, takes away any part of the constitutional right to have a jury pass upon the weight of all of the facts introduced in evidence.
I believe the judgment of the court below should be. affirmed.

 Nichols v. New York Life Ins. Co., supra, at 141. In a case involving an action on an insurance policy, in which the McConkey case, supra, was followed, the Supreme Court of Montana said:
“The testimony as to the incidents connected with the death of the insured is slight, but is sufficient to establish the death of insured by external and violent means. . . .
“. . .if plaintiff had 'shown by the fair weight of the evidence that the assured came to his death as the result of a pistol shot . . ., then the law will presume that the shot was accidental, and that it was not inflicted with murderous or suicidal intent. And under *174such circumstances the burden will be upon the defendant to overcome this presumption, and to show that the death was not caused by accidental means/
“It is apparent, therefore, that under the great weight of authority plaintiff’s evidence made a prima facie case. As said by this court in numerous decisions, when a prima facie case is made by plaintiff, the defendant must rebut the case so made, or fail in the action.” Withers v. Pacific Mutual life Ins. Co., 58 Mont. 485, 491, 492, 493, 494; 193 P. 566, 568.
“Testimony constituting a mere contradiction of the facts established presumptively by the prima facie case does not necessarily suffice to overthrow the same. . . . the prima facie case must not only be contradicted but overcome as well. When such case is made, contradictory testimony merely amounts to a conflict in the evidence, with the ultimate facts to be determined by the court or jury, as the case may be.” State v. Nielsen, 57 Mont. 137, 143; 187 P. 639, 640. Cf. Johnson v. Chicago, M. & St. P. Ry. Co., 52 Mont. 73; 155 P. 971. See, Renland v. First National Bank, 90 Mont. 424, 437; 4 P. 2d 488.

 Cf. Nichols v. New York Life Ins. Co., supra, at 144.

 Cf. Central Vermont Ry. Co. v. White, 238 U. S. 507, 511, 512; New Orleans & N. E. R. Co. v. Harris, 247 U. S. 367, 371, 372.

 Pritchard v. Norton, 106 U. S. 124, 130; Northwestern Mutual Life Ins. Co. v. McCue, 223 U. S. 234, 246, 247.