Court Opinion

ID: 9597250
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:57:03.266021+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:01:37.491854
License: Public Domain

*494Justice MEYER
concurring, in result.
I concur in the result reached in the opinion of the majority. I am unable to concur in some of the reasoning which the majority employs to reach that result, and I write separately solely for the purpose of explaining my position in that regard.
In explaining its interpretation of N.C.G.S. § 52-3 and its predecessors, N.C. Rev. Code § 2099 and N.C. Consol. Stat. § 2512, the majority says: “In order for the section to have any meaning, the section must give a wife something in addition to her rights under the common law. We believe it gives wives the right to insure their husbands’ lives without their consent.” I am unable to agree with those two statements because, as every lawyer knows, the legislature frequently enacts a statute which simply codifies existing common law, without any change whatsoever to the common law it codifies. I believe that is precisely the case with N.C.G.S. § 52-3 and its predecessors because, at common law, wives and husbands had an insurable interest in the lives of each other, and that insurable interest was not dependent upon the consent of the insured spouse.
I doubt that the majority would seriously question the right at common law of even a divorced person to insure the life of the former spouse who will not consent ^hereto, where the former spouse is obligated by judgment of the court to pay alimony or child support, so long as that obligation exists. See 2 J. Appleman, Insurance Law and Practice § 802 (1966); 43 Am. Jur. 2d Insurance § 978 (1982).