Court Opinion

ID: 9637188
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 15:00:04.357712+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:54.310884
License: Public Domain

PHILLIPS, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
There can be no doubt on this record that the insured desired and fully intended to change the beneficiary under the policy by substituting his wife, for his mother as such beneficiary. The question presented is whether he did an affirmative act to effectuate that intent. Compliance with Regulation R. & P. R-3447 was unnecessary. That Regulation was adopted for the protection of the United States and its requirements could be and were waived by the Veterans’ Administration. Farley v. United States, D.C.Or., 291 F. 238, 241 ; Murphy v. United States, D.C.Mass., 5 F. Supp. 583, 585.
In the report, referred to in the majority opinion, the insured stated that he had the policy of insurance and that the beneficiary thereunder was Ann M. Bradley, his wife, and that the policy, was inr her possession. That he believed that by making such statement in the report and delivering the policy to his wife he had effected the change of beneficiary is manifest by the fact that immediately thereafter he told his wife he had “taken care of the insurance at the Army Base.”
In Johnson v. White, 8 Cir., 39 F.2d 793, 796, the court said:
“The intention, desire, and purpose of this soldier should, if it can reasonably be done, be given effect by the courts, and substance, rather than form, should be the basis of the decisions of courts of equity. The clearly expressed intention and purpose of the deceased to have his wife named as the beneficiary in this insurance should control, and should not be thwarted by the fact that all the formalities for making this purpose effective may not have been "complied with.”-
In Kaschefsky v. Kaschefsky, 6 . Cir., 110 F.2d 836, 837, the veteran while in the service took out a policy of war risk insurance, in which he named a brother as beneficiary. While stationed at Camp Jackson the insured addressed several letters to his sister expressing his desire to make all of his sisters and brothers equally-participating beneficiaries of the insurance contract, as was his original purpose to do when he applied for the policy, but did not do because he was instructed to name but a single beneficiary. In holding that the insured had effected a change in the beneficiary, the court said:
“Upon the facts found, the court concluded that the plaintiffs had sustained the burden to establish a change of beneficiaries, and regarded the fact that the communications to that end did not reach the government until after the insured’s death, to be immaterial. With these conclusions we agree. Claffy v. Forbes, D.C.Wash., 280 F. 233; Steele v. Suwalski, 7 Cir., 75 F.2d 885, 99 A.L.R. 588. The view expressed by the court in the first reference commends itself to us, ‘Form, formality, and legal technicality must give way to common sense and remedial justice, when all doubt is removed as to the intent of the deceased soldier; . and when the purpose of the law has been complied with, there should be no hesitancy in carrying out the express wish of such deceased. The letter is a designation signed by the insured and the fact that it was sent to the mother to make the final designation, in the event of her death, instead of being sent to the bureau for record, should not defeat it.’ (280 F. 235.)”
In Claffy v. Forbes, D.C.Wash., 280 F. 233, the insured veteran wrote a letter to his mother, in which, among other things, he said: “I have also made out a $10,000 life insurance to you. If I should be killed, it will be paid to you, $57.50 a month for 20 years, and I wish that if you should not live to get it all that you make it so that Agnes would get it.” The court held that the letter was a sufficient designation of a change of beneficiary and that the fact that it was not received by the Bureau until after the death of the insured veteran did not invalidate the designation. It will be observed that the Claffy case is cited with approval in Kaschefsky v. Kaschefsky, supra.
See, also, United States v. Johnson, D.C. Ky., 46 F.2d 549.
*579I am of the opinion that the statement in the report and the delivery of the policy by the insured to the wife constituted affirmative acts intended to effect a change in the beneficiary.
For these reasons, I respectfully dissent from that part of the opinion which holds that Annie Mae Bradley is not the beneficiary under the policy.