Court Opinion

ID: 9825607
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 13:30:34.24647+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:40:05.861852
License: Public Domain

On the Merits.
Applications for like amounts of insurance on the lives of appellee Anderson and his wife were dated February 28, 1940. Their medical examinations followed on March 4th, and the policies of insurance, with applications made a part thereof, were dated March 14th. The insured Lois H. Anderson died April 26, 1940, from wounds inflicted on April 24th, the result of an alleged automobile wreck.
A consideration of the evidence convinces us that prior to taking out the insurance, the appellee was going with a woman other than his wife. The insured Lois H. Anderson informed friends that she was pregnant, and had begun to make preparations for her confinement. Aside from taking out the foregoing policies on the respective lives of husband and wife, payable to each other, appellee procured a burial insurance policy and a vault policy on himself, his wife and a crippled child. After the wife’s death, appellee procured burial policies on his other two children.
On the morning of April 24th, one month and twenty days subsequent to the issuance of the policies of life insurance, appellee took his wife in his car to Gadsden, to investigate what she was to receive from the estate of her uncle. Late in the-afternoon, appellee and wife left Gadsden to return to their home on Brindley Mountain. In Gadsden the wife bought some dresses. Appellee purchased some fuses for the lighting system of his car that had theretofore given him trouble. Appellee stated that upon leaving Gadsden, they stopped at convenient places and bought some fruit for the children and some tomato plants. The husband and wife were alone in the car, and as they proceeded homeward, at about 8:30 R. M., they were stopped near Guntersville by the state highway patrolmen. These state officials checked the lights on appellee’s car, found them to be working properly, inspected his .driver’s license, and permitted them to proceed on their way. There were no houses along this wooded section of Brindley Mountain road, except one in the valley, or at the foot of the mountain. The description of the accident is given-by Anderson as follows;
“Q. When you started up the mountain you say you were going about forty of fifty. Did you hold that speed until you. got to the place? A. Approximately, and. this side where I went off there was a gully in the road where the road sunk down — a fill there and this road was sinking down and as I went over this my lights flickered out and in a minute or two came back on and in another minute or two they went off and I put my brakes, on and the next thing I knew I was going-off the fill.
“Q. When you came to a stop where-were you? A. Under the mountain, this-fill.
“Q. Down on the side of the mountain? A. Yes. * * *.
“Q. What was the condition of the ground along there from the point where you went off to the tree where you stopped ?' A. Large rocks, bushes and briars.
“Q. What part of the car struck the tree and ho-w did it stop? A. The front part of the car.
*599“Q. Was the tree to the right of the ■center or left? A. A little to the left of the center of the car.
“Q. When you hit the tree, what did you do then? Were you normal then? A. I were knocked out for a little bit. I ■don’t know how long. When I came to myself I tried to get out and opened the •door on my side. The ground was low and the car was up and I could not reach the .ground with my feet.
“Q. The ground broke away fast on that side? A. Yes. My feet would not touch the ground so I got ahold of the door and got my feet out and on the ground and straightened up myself and started around the front and there were bushes and briars and I could not get around the rear on the right and opened the door to get hold of my wife.
“Q. What condition was she in? A. Just laying over against the front of the car.
“Q. You got hold of her? A. Yes.
“Q. What did you do? A. Pulled her •out of the car.
“Q. Was she conscious? A. I could not say.
“Q. What did you do for her? A. I asked her if she was hurt and she said she did not think so and rubbed her hand over my face and felt some blood and said, ■‘Willie, you are hurt.’ I said, T don’t think so.’ About that time she began vomiting and I had to sit her down. She could not stand up. I rested a minute and picked her up and sat her in the front seat of the car. I told her I would have to have some help. She said, ‘Well.’ I crawled out from there and got up to the top of the mountain to get help.”
Appellee stated he went for help to a man’s residence, gave the alarm and requested an ambulance to take his wife to the hospital. Appellee claimed that at this point things seemed to temporarily go blank with him. The testimony tended to show that he was slightly bruised, his pants torn and leg scraped. He tried to drink water and could not and a witness said he acted at the time like a drunk or crazy man, but no one smelled whiskey on his breath; and that he begged for help for his wife. The evidence further shows that Anderson was taken to the hospital at Guntersville, where he was treated for slight bruises, a cut on the head, and bruise on his leg where his pants were torn. Meanwhile an ambulance had taken his wife to the hospital at Arab, where she died a day or so later. The testimony further tended to show that when Anderson was treated for his slight injuries, he returned to the scene of the accident, inquired of the people there the extent of his wife’s injuries, and then hastened to the hospital where she was, and there remained until she died.
When Mrs. Anderson was taken to the hospital, she was bleeding from the head, mouth and ears, and there was an injury to the side of her head and to the front. There were bruises on her hand and arms, no broken bones, except the point indicated on her head. The skull exhibited sustains the serious nature and designations of the place of her injury. There was a difference of opinion among the witnesses, except the experts, as to whether she could or did speak at the hospital. The testimony of the medical experts was to the effect that her skull was crushed just back of the temple, at a point slightly above the ear, and the ear was not injured. The skull bone immediately in the rear of the ear was crushed, and brain tissues were oozing out therefrom. The skull exhibited shows two bruises well separated on the front thereof, which did not break the bone. The experts were of opinion that after such injury, she could not have made a conscious statement, or perceived her husband’s face, or made comment upon it, as the husband stated she did.
Adverting to the track of the car over the bluff to its resting place, the testimony and exhibits show that the left side of the front was jammed into a tree in a briar patch, affecting the opening of the car door, as appellee testified. The car track from the bluff turned directly to the right, going down the bluff, and did not roll over before striking the tree or sapling about 100 feet from the highway. There was no obstruction in the way to break the windshield.
Appellee, as a witness, admitted having a blackjack in his possession in the car when he and his wife were coming up the mountain; stated it was in the glove pocket of the panel of the car; that he did not take it out; did not know who removed it from the car after the accident; and had not seen it since. However, after the death of his wife, appellee inquired of a witness, who had inspected the car after the accident, whether or not he had seen his *600blackjack or his pistol when at the scene of (the accident.
Witness Verna Patten testified that about a week before' the accident she was with Anderson and Rhinehart in Alabama City-in front of the picture show, and was asked: “If either one of them said in your presence, or in the presence of each other, that if their plans went through they were going to buy the picture show and spend about a thousand dollars on it and give you a job as ticket taker? And over the objection of appellee’s attorney, to which exception was reserved, the witness answered that they said they would do such, “If everything worked out all right.”
A deputy sheriff at the time of the trial and a state highway patrolman at the time the accident occurred, and Gornam, a highway patrolman, examined the car after the wreck at about two o’clock A. M., including the lights and testified “the headlights worked,” that the windshield was broken from the outside, and observed blood as they inspected the car on the floor, seat and running board, as shown by the pictures in evidence. The pictures were taken by one of the state department. The witness further testified that the blood was washed off the morning afterwards when they inspected the car. These were the same patrolmen who had inspected the lights of Anderson’s car at 8:30 P. M., as he proceeded on his way up Brindley Mountain, and they testified the car lights were shining at that time before the accident. On cross-examination the witness said:
“Q. What light was it after you went there did you check to see if it was working? A. Head lights and tail lights would both burn and also the dome light would burn.
“Q. Was anybody there with you when you checked those lights ? A. Mr. Gornam there.
“Q. You notice that windshield over there and a part of that glass is now out. Was that out when you saw it down the mountain? A. It was not.
“Q. Was not? At that time? A. No.
“Q. I will ask you to look at that picture here and ask you if that is a true picture of that car and o'f that windshield when you saw it after the accident ? A. It * % %9>
After reaching the hospital at Arab, appellee stated to one witness that he did not remember going down the bluff in the car, and said it “seemed like" it throwed” him out “somewhere.” He stated as a witness that he went over the bluff and to the tree as indicated in the picture, and stated the cause of his accident and injury, as herein-before set out.
Dr. Martin, who was present at the autopsy, testified that based on the location and nature of the fracture on Mrs. Anderson’s head, the fracture was not the result of a blow such as striking the inside of a car in a collision; that such fracture was produced by a blow from a blackjack; that the windshield of the car was shattered as if struck by some object. There was other testimony that the break in the windshield was produced by a blow from the outside. The windshield is before the court and demonstrates that the shattering -of the windshield was from force applied from the outside, being, slightly bent toward the inside of the car, and all the uneven shatters or sharp edges of the glass point to such result — that the break was from force applied from without, and not from a collision with the tree. The marks of breakage in the glass on the outside are smooth and even, while those on the inside are rough, not even, pointing to the inside. We are convinced from'the whole evidence that the breakage of the windshield was not the result of an accidental force in the contact of the car with the sapling, but the result of a force applied thereto from without before or after the car was removed from the bluff.
The post mortem examination of Mrs. Anderson’s body by Doctors Nixon arid Jones of the Department of Toxicology discloses a laceration of the skull about IV2 inches above the right eye; that the eye and bridge of the nose on the right side were blood shot and showed swelling; that the right hand was swollen and bloodshot just below the knuckles; that there was no broken bone in the hand; that the balance of the body showed no bruises, except just over the left hip, which was large and bloodshot; that a laceration appeared immediately above and behind the ear: That when the scalp was removed from the skull, it was found that the temporal bone had a multiple fracture; that part of the bone was loose and imbedded in the brain tissue back of and above the ear; that the fracture of the skull above and behind the right ear was lengthwise, and injured the mastoid bone, while the ear on that side was not injured.
*601It was shown that the car was a two-door sedan. There was blood in the bottom of the car in the front of the right side of the front seat, and it ran out on to the running board and along the running board to the back fender where it dropped off to the ground. One witness testified that when he next saw the car after its removal from the scene of the accident, he noticed the blood had been washed off from the running board; that “the car was bloody in the foot board on the right running board the night of the accident and the following Monday, it was not bloody.” That he checked the lights of the car around eight o’clock of the night of the injury, and the car lights were working. That when he went down to the car after it had gone down the mountain, the lights were working. That he turned them on and they burned.
Mr. Mashburn, the State Highway Patrolman, testified that he examined the scene after the' accident. The car rested against a tree or sapling and the marks from the highway to such point were at a 45 degree angle from the road to the bluff where the car went over, and that it ran about 98 feet into the sapling. He testified that most of the blood was “on the floor board of the front seat and spots on the back seat and on the extreme back was other spots of blood.” That blood extended “the entire length of the right running board”; that when he saw the car at the scene of the accident on the back right fender of the running board some blood “dripped there”; that he found in the back seat of the car a blanket folded up with clotted blood on it and there were splotches of blood on the back part of the front seat and between the seats near the floor where Mrs. Anderson sat.
The witness Tidmore testified there was blood on the windshield and “puddled” in the car under the seat and “come out and ran off the running board back next to the back fender, a stream as big as my finger.” The testimony further showed that the front end of the car was jammed into a tree and briars when Mrs. Anderson’s body was found therein. The car was standing on its wheels and the back end was straight up the cliff towards the road; and, as counsel for appellant aptly observes, “blood does not run upstream.”
The witness Brandon testified that Mash-burn said at first if Anderson would give up the policy, the prosecution would be dropped.
The testimony shows Mrs. Anderson was about four months pregnant when she was examined for the insurance, though she made a negative answer to such question. Doctors Jones and Nixon testified the fetus introduced in evidence was 4%'to 5 months old. Dr. Crawford testified when Mrs. Anderson was brought to the hospital, his examination showed she was 3% to 4 months pregnant. Other testimony showed that pregnancy produces the danger of death by childbirth at a ratio of 28 to 1,000; and the physician for defendant company testified he required further examination if a woman stated in her application for insurance she was pregnant, and if the company accepted her after further examination, a pregnant woman was charged an additional rate of $5 per thousand for the first year’s premium on the policy. The expert testified that childbirth endangered the life of a woman, and among physicians is rated as a major surgical operation, insofar as danger is concerned.
The vice president of the company testified he passed on the instant application for insurance, and if Mrs. Anderson had answered she was pregnant in her application, he would not have approved it for a standard rate, but would have required an additional examination; and thereafter, if the policy had been issued, the company would have required an additional premium of $5 per thousand for the first year.
It is further to be noted, in connection with the application for insurance, that the fetus exhibited to this court was said by experts to have been well advanced, from four to five months in growth, which is indicated by its appearance of simple growth of hair, finger and toe nails, and the sex organ, showing it was a boy. This court has recently distinguished between expressions of opinions by experts, and testimony of an expert, as to the existence or nonexistence of a fact, proved solely by scientific processes, methods of determination or knowledge. Pollard v. Treadwell, 234 Ala. 615, 176 So. 452; New York Life Ins. Co. v. Zivitz, 243 Ala. 379, 10 So.2d 276, 143 A.L.R. 321; Provident Life & Acc. Ins. Co. v. Downey, 242 Ala. 482, 7 So.2d 17; Grabove v. Mutual Ben. Health & Accident Ass’n, 241 Ala. 88, 1 So.2d 297.
Our cases are in accord on a jury question presented under the statute. Code 1940, Tit. 28, § 6. It is sufficient if the *602“misrepresentations are false and relate to matters which increase .the risk of loss.” Vredenburgh v. Liberty Nat. Life Ins. Co., Ala., 20 So.2d 207, 213 ;1 Commonwealth Life Ins. Co. v. Harmon, 228 Ala. 377, 153 So. 755; National Life & Accident Ins. Co. v. Collins, 244 Ala. 182, 12 So.2d 353.
We have stated the tendencies of evidence touching the agency materially contributing to the homicide. It is well eslished that a beneficiary in a life insurance' policy, who murders or feloniously causes the death of an insured, forfeits all rights which he may have in or under the policy. This rule, based upon sound public policy, and the principle that one should not be allowed to benefit from his own wrong, was announced by the Supreme Court of the United States in New York Mutual Life Ins. Co. v. Armstrong, 117 U.S. 591, 6 S.Ct. 877, 29 L.Ed. 997. The general authorities are collected in 29 Am.Juris. 979, § 1310; Johnston v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., 85 W.Va. 70, 100 S.E. 865, 7 A.L.R. 823; Spicer v. State, 198 Ala. 13, 73 So. 396; Sovereign Camp, W. O. W. v. Gunn, 227 Ala. 400, 150 So. 491; Protective Life Ins. Co. v. Linson, 245 Ala. 493, 17 So.2d 761.
A study of the evidence discloses many unexplained incriminating circumstances. To illustrate, appellee wrote the general agent of the instant insurance company that he was ready to take out the insurance he had previously discussed with him, bu't the evidence shows, he had just previously surrendered a $5,000 insurance policy in the Mutual Life. He had only $200 to pay on the premium of about $450, but the evidence shows, he had just previously indicated his intention to purchase a picture show business, improve the same at large expenditure, and make the party to whom su'ch representations were made the ticket seller. And, while in Gadsden on the day of the alleged accident, appellee had been prospecting for a new car.
There are contradictions or unexplained facts in Anderson’s testimony, among them being the testimony as to whether or not he could have opened the door on the lefthand side of the car; where he got the flash light he had in hand when he went for help; his inquiries of who got his pistol out of the car; why he had a blackjack in his car and when and why it was taken therefrom; how his wife’s hat (which she wore to Gadsden) was placed and found by an impartial witness unsoiled or unbroken between the steering wheel and base of the windshield of the car; and when and why his little child’s used toy or bicycle wheel was placed in the car.
We have indicated, the evidence shows there was blood on the front and back of the seat of the car in which his wife was riding, and on the seat where the driver sat. Defendant’s pants, exhibited before this court, have a slight discoloration at about the location of the blood on the left side of the front seat of the car, and the-fact of the location of blood is likewise-shown by the picture in evidence to be on the seat of the car where the driver sat. If the assured was killed while in a sitting position and before they approached the point where the car went off the road, such blood stains are understood. If her injury was caused by the impact of the car with the small tree after the car left the road, as shown by the picture in evidence, the foregoing facts are not readily explainable.
There is further testimony that immediately after the funeral and burial of his wife, appellee went to the woman’s (in question) house, and remained there for some time. Such fact is attested by two witnesses who are not shown to be interested.
The witness Tidmore, who testified for the defendant, stated that upon hearing of the accident he and the witness Brandon-went immediately to the scene thereof, and stated the conditions obtaining when they saw the car. The witness observed that the windshield appeared to have been “broken from the outside of the car.” That there was blood on the windshield and a puddle of blood in the car on the floor board; that the blood was on Mrs. Anderson’s side under the seat, “and came out and ran off the running board against the fender of the car.” That the blood ran out of the car “where the door closed,” and ran on down the running board and ran off back next to the back fender; that Anderson talked to him about the tragedy and said, “I was hurt pretty bad in the knee or hip somewhere.” The witness was asked if Anderson said anything to him with reference to testifying in the case and replied: “The only thing he ever said to me was asking me to stick to him.” This conversation occurred the next day after Mrs. Anderson was buried. The witness further testified that Anderson had a pistol “at that *603time,” and called me into the room, had a string of ladies’ purses on his arm and ■asked me to identify the one that I saw the night of the wreck, and the witness told him he “did not see one that night;” and Anderson then said he wanted to know who •got the gun and asked me if I saw the gun and I told him I didn’t and I asked him, “Where is the gun ?” Anderson opened the •tray of the trunk, showed me his gun and said: “Somebody got my gun out of the ■car that night.” Witness was then asked, “When he opened that tray and you saw his gun what did he do?” and answered, '“He picked it up and I was standing in front of him, and he held it like that (pointing in the direction of witness^ and says, “Tidmore, you had better stick to me,’ with the gun in his hand.” Subsequent to that •conversation, the witness further testified, “He accused me of talking a little too much and met me between his house and 'the line of his place above the Chasteen place, he was in something like fifty feet of the road there and I was walking the road and he hollered at me and come on up whittling with a knife and says, ‘Tidmore, we have always been friends and I am going to ask you one more time to stick to me,’ and kept whittling. Q. Did you •make any remarks? A. I says, T wear •a #9 shoe and cover all the ground I stand on, and I have not said anything I am ■going to take back,’ and walked off.”
In connection with the above ■detailed evidence, it should be observed that, in a civilized country, the rule of obstructing justice obtains. Code 1923, § 3472, Code 1940, Tit. 14, § 79. “Evidence that a party attempted to prevent a fair trial, as by the suppression or fabrication of evidence, is admissible to show that he is •conscious of the weakness of his case.” 31 C.J.S., Evidence, § 179, p. 880. The rule in this jurisdiction is best stated by Mr. Justice Bouldin in Drummond v. Drummond, 212 Ala. 242, 102 So. 112, 114, as follows: "Any effort by a party to intimidate a witness, to create bias or prejudice in his mind against the other side, or to suppress testimony, may be used as evidence against such party. The inquiry is not its effect on the witness and his testimony, but its probative force against the party resorting to such means to effect his ends. Such facts clearly shown often work the undoing of the party guilty of such practice. It indicates, not a seeking after justice, but an effort to poison the stream of justice. The reaction is a poison to the cause of him who seeks to use it. * * * ”
An inspection of Mrs. Anderson’s skull, together with the explanation of experts as to the injury being caused by the infliction of a blow, rather than by a collision; and the fact that the ear was uninjured immediately adjacent to the broken skull and bone, point inescapably to the conclusion that the injury causing insured’s death was intentional, rather than the result of the alleged accidental impact of the car with the small tree or sapling, picture of which is before the court as an exhibit.
Sam Weaver, a witness for the defendant, who went to the scene of the accident with Mr. Brandon and A1 Tidmore the night it occurred, testified as follows:
“Did you talk to Willie Anderson that night? A. Yes, a little.
“Q. Where were you? A. In Arab.
“Q. What was said by Willie Anderson, or in that conversation? A. I asked him, T don’t believe you went down in that car.’ He said he didn’t remember, ‘seemed like it throwed him out somewhere.’
“Q. Did he say anything else? A. Said he didn’t remember- anything from, the time the lights went out until he came to in the hospital when they were putting a patch over his eye. * *
To answer this phase of the evidence plaintiff introduced in evidence one of Anderson’s handkerchiefs,) which the witness claimed to have picked up below the bluff sometime after the accident, and the evidence shows that it was similar to the one Anderson testified his wife had given him as a present. These handkerchiefs had been laundered and it is urged that the one picked up had blood on it. It is not clear from the evidence, however, whether the discoloration on the handkerchief was caused by blood or iron rust.
Many charges were requested, shedding light on the several phases of the case. The court did not err in giving such charges. They were in accord with the general charge of the court and the law that obtains. The many refused charges were either covered by given charges, invaded the province of the jury, or were misleading or erroneous. Refused charges numbered 38 and 39, if insisted upon, were properly refused, in taking from the jury the right to say, whether, under all the evidence, such false representation increased the risk of loss, or that the new trial *604should have been granted thereon, to appellant’s prejudice and injury. However, we do not find that appellant insisted upon assignments of error XXXX or XXXXI, covering the refusal of these charges, and when the part of the general charge of the court, to which, exception was reserved by appellant is considered with the other instructions given by the court, there was no error.
When the whole record is considered, together with the many exhibits, we are of opinion that, “The preponderance of the evidence against the verdict is so decided as to clearly convince the court that it is wrong and unjust.” Cobb v. Malone & Collins, 92 Ala. 630, 9 So. 738, 740; Bell v. Nichols, 245 Ala. 274, 275, 16 So.2d 799. The motion for a new trial should have been granted on this ground.
It results from the foregoing that the motion is overruled, insofar as it relates to striking the entire record; but the motion is granted, as to the transcript of testimony relating to defendant’s plea in abatement, because it appears on its face that it was filed January 4, 1945, and without authority of law.
All the Justices concur as to the ruling on the motion to strike the record, except GARDNER, C. J., not sitting.
The judgment of the circuit court is reversed, and the cause remanded.
Reversed and remanded.
FOSTER, STAKELY, and SIMPSON, JJ., concur.
GARDNER, C. J., not sitting.

 Ante, p. 251.