Court Opinion

ID: 9549043
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:12:25.61471+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:19:45.869182
License: Public Domain

MOSK, J.
I dissent.
Three significant questions are raised by the major issue in this case—the meaning and effect of the standard suicide exclusion clause in life insurance policies. They are: (1) whether the clause is ambiguous; (2) what the phrase “suicide, sane or insane” means; and (3) which party bears the burden of proving suicide. The majority correctly answer the first and third questions. Their answer to the second question, however, is wrong: not only is it contrary to the plain meaning of the clause and against the great weight of authority, but it also reintroduces and indeed exacerbates the very difficulty the clause was intended to remove.
I
On the first question, it cannot seriously be contended that the phrase “suicide, sane or insane” is self-contradictory and thus ambiguous.
*446To begin with, a moment’s reflection reveals it is the popular understanding that both sane and insane persons commit suicide: we commonly call “suicide” not only the self-destruction of such rational figures as Marcus Junius Brutus and Arthur Koestler, but also such deranged individuals as Adolf Hitler and the Reverend Jim Jones.1
Second, for over 100 years the courts of this land have been able to understand and hence have enforced exclusion clauses containing the words “suicide, sane or insane,” or similar phrases. (See, e.g., Bigelow v. Berkshire Life Ins. Co. (1876) 93 U.S. 284, 286-288 [23 L.Ed. 918, 919-920]; Nielsen v. Provident Life and Acc. Ins. Co. (1979) 100 Idaho 223 [596 P.2d 95, 97-98]; Atkinson v. Life Ins. Co. of Virginia (1976) 217 Va. 208 [228 S.E.2d 117, 120-121]; Johnson v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (3d Cir. 1968) 404 F.2d 1202, 1204 [applying N.J. law]; Aetna Life Insurance Company v. McLaughlin (Tex. 1964) 380 S.W.2d 101, 102-106 [9 A.L.R.3d 1005].)
Third, the statutes of 21 states expressly permit the use in life insurance policies of the very phrase in question here. (Ala. Code, § 27-15-24(a)(2)e (1975); Alaska Stat., § 21.45.250(a)(2)(E) (1956); Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann., § 20-1226 A.5 (1956); Ark. Stat. Ann., § 66-3323(1)(b)(v) (1980); Del. Code Ann., tit. 18, § 2926(a)(2)(e) (1974); Ga. Code Ann., § 56-2507(l)(e) (1981); Idaho Code, § 41-1925(l)(b)(v) (1977); Ky. Rev. Stat., § 304.15-260(l)(b)(5) (1981); Me. Rev. Stat. Ann., tit. 24-A, § 2525 l.B.(5) (1964); Md. Ins. Code Ann., art. 48a, § 410(a)(5) (1979); Miss. Code Ann., § 83-.37-13(9) (1984 Cum. Supp.); Nev. Rev. Stat., § 688A.260 1(5) (1981); N.M. Stat. Ann., § 59A-20-25.A(e) (1985); Okla. Stat. Ann., tit. 36, § 4024 A.3 (West 1976); S.D. Codified Laws Ann., § 58-15-45(5) (1978); Tenn. Code Ann., § 56-7-302(5)(A) (1980); Utah Code Ann., § 31-22-15 (1974); Wash. Rev. Code Ann., § 48.23.260(l)(b) (1961); W.Va. Code Ann., § 33-13-25(a)(5) (1982); Wyo. Stat. Ann., § 26-16-119(a)(ii)(E) (1977); see Colo. Rev. Stat., § 10-7-109 (1973) [“suicide . . . after the first policy year . . . shall not be a defense . . . whether said policyholder was sane or insane”].) Four other states permit essentially identical phrases. (La. Rev. Stat. Ann., § 22:170 B.(3) (West Supp. 1985) [“self-destruction while sane or insane”]; Mont. Code Ann., § 33-20-121 (1981) [“suicide, while seriously mentally ill or otherwise”]; Tex. Ins. Code Ann., art. *4473.45(3) (Vernon) (1981) [“death of the insured by his own hand while sane or insane”]; Va. Code, § 38.1-437 (1981) [“die by his own act (whether sane or insane)”].)2
II
On the second of the three questions, however, I part company with the majority. The majority conclude that “[a] proper interpretation of the clause is that it exempts the insurance company from liability only if the insured, whether sane or insane at the time, committed the act of self-destruction with suicidal intent.” (Ante at p. 436.) The majority thus make intent—in the technical sense used in the criminal law—material to the determination of the trier of fact, and thereby throw open the issue of the insured’s state of mind at the moment of the act of self-destruction. In my view, intent in this sense is simply not material; rather, the trier of fact need determine only whether the act of self-destruction, objectively considered, was accidental—or, in the popular sense, “unintentional.”
As will appear, the plain meaning of the clause excluding “suicide, sane or insane” is that all nonaccidental self-destruction, no matter what the insured’s state of mind, is outside the coverage of the policy.
To begin with, such a construction is rooted in the popular understanding, referred to above, that both sane and insane persons commit suicide.
It is consonant, moreover, with the manifest purpose of the clause. By excluding all nonaccidental self-destruction regardless of the insured’s state of mind for two years or some similar period of time, the clause promotes two competing goals: broad coverage and low premiums.
The clause increases coverage by excluding suicide for only a relatively short period. In other words, the insurer agrees to “regard suicide after that length of time as one of the hazards covered by the policy.” (Longenberger v. Prudential Ins. Co. of America (1936) 121 Pa. Super. 225 [183 A. 422, 425].)
The clause reduces premiums by avoiding the costs of suicide in three respects. (See, e.g., Bigelow v. Berkshire Life Ins. Co., supra, 93 U.S. *448284, 287 [23 L.Ed. 918, 919]; Blunt v. Fidelity and Casualty Co. (1904) 145 Cal. 268, 271 [78 P. 729]; Nielsen v. Provident Life and Acc. Ins. Co., supra, 596 P.2d 95, 97; Johnson v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (D.N.J. 1967) 273 F.Supp. 589, 594-595, affd. (3d Cir. 1968) 404 F.2d 1202; Longenberger v. Prudential Ins. Co. of America, supra, 183 A. 422, 425-426; Silliman v. International Life Ins. Co. (1915) 131 Tenn. 303 [174 S.W. 1131, 1133]; Tritschler v. Keystone Mut. Ben. Ass’n. (1897) 180 Pa. 205 [36 A. 734, 734-735].)
First, the clause obviously avoids the primary costs of suicide—that is, the payment of benefits to the suicide’s beneficiary. (See Blunt v. Fidelity and Casualty Co., supra, 145 Cal. 268, 271; Tritschler v. Keystone Mut. Ben. Ass’n., supra, 36 A. 734, 734.) As a result, the insurer receives the benefit of the clause by being exempted from liability, and “[t]he assured receive[s] the benefit ... in the reduced amount of the premium . . . .” (Blunt v. Fidelity and Casualty Co., supra, at p. 271.)
Second, and more specifically, the clause also avoids the costs of fraud— the costs of suicide planned, for example, by a terminally ill insured to increase his estate. (See Longenberger v. Prudential Ins. Co. of America, supra, 183 A. 422, 425-426.) Such costs are not among those that are properly borne by either the general body of policyholders or the insurer. Because insurance is intended and designed to protect against unforeseeable events,3 the payment of benefits for a planned—i.e., foreseeable—suicide is antithetical to the very purpose of the contract. Moreover, even if they were proper, the costs of planned suicide are difficult to project and hence difficult to spread in an equitable manner: “While it is possible to compute actuarially the percentage of loss from the ordinary factors of mortality, this becomes somewhat more difficult where an insured voluntarily brings about the maturing event.” (1B Appleman, Insurance Law and Practice (rev. ed. 1981) § 492, p. 346.) Such costs would therefore result in either lower profits for the insurer or, more likely, higher premiums for the policyholders.4
Third, and of greatest relevance here, a suicide exclusion clause avoids the derivative costs that all suicides, planned or unplanned, would otherwise *449impose—i.e., the large expense in time and money of trying to determine the insured’s actual state of mind. (See Johnson v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, supra, 273 F.Supp. 589, 594-595; Longenberger v. Prudential Ins. Co. of America, supra, 183 A. 422, 426; Silliman v. International Life Ins. Co., supra, 174 S.W. 1131, 1133.) Without an effective exclusion for suicide whether “sane or insane,” it would be necessary, in every case in which the beneficiary raised the issue, for the trier of fact to attempt to answer such troublesome questions as whether the insured acted with fraudulent intent (see Silliman v. International Life Ins. Co., supra, at p. 1133) or whether he was a responsible moral agent at the time of the act of self-destruction (see Bigelow v. Berkshire Life Ins. Co., supra, 93 U.S. 284, 286 [23 L.Ed. 918, 919]; Johnson v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., supra, at pp. 594-595).5
Because the foregoing questions are difficult and in many cases practically impossible to answer, the derivative costs of suicide are likely to be high.6 This fact of economic life was recognized over a century ago (see Bigelow v. Berkshire Life Ins. Co., supra, 93 U.S. at pp. 286-288) and is recognized today (see Johnson v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, supra, 273 F.Supp. at pp. 594-595). As the Johnson court explained (ibid.): “If it has been necessary to open this Pandora’s box [of state of mind] in the sphere of criminal responsibility and to apply our imprecise tools as best we can, most courts have, I think wisely, kept it shut ... by giving the ‘suicide, sane or insane clause’ its plain, intended meaning. As the Supreme Court sensibly pointed out almost a century ago [in Bigelow], it is precisely to avoid such imponderables that the insurer inserts the modifying language.”
A construction of the clause as excluding all nonaccidental self-destruction regardless of the insured’s state of mind is not only in accord with its plain meaning and manifest purpose, it is also supported by the great weight of authority interpreting “suicide, sane or insane” and similar phrases. (See, e.g., Bigelow v. Berkshire Life Ins. Co., supra, 93 U.S. 284, 286-288 [23 L.Ed. 918, 919-920]; Dennis v. Union Mut. Life Ins. Co., supra, 84 Cal. 570, 571-572; Nielsen v. Provident Life and Acc. Ins. Co., supra, 596 P.2d 95, 97-98; Atkinson v. Life Ins. Co. of Virginia, supra, 228 S.E.2d *450117, 120-121; Ann Arbor Trust Co. v. North American Co. for L. & H.I. (E.D.Mich. 1974) 383 F.Supp. 310, 312-315, affd. and remanded with instructions (6th Cir. 1975) 527 F.2d 526, cert. den. (1976) 425 U.S. 993 [48 L.Ed.2d 818, 96 S.Ct. 2206] [applying Mich, law]; Johnson v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., supra, 273 F.Supp. 589, 592-594; Aetna Life Insurance Company v. McLaughlin, supra, 380 S.W.2d 101, 102-106; Gibson v. Reliance Life Ins. Co. (1934) 172 S.C. 94 [172 S.E. 772, 774-775]; State ex rel. Shoemaker v. Daues (1925) 312 Mo. 62 [278 S.W. 735, 736-737] [applying Ill. law]; Silliman v. International Life Ins. Co., supra, 174 S.W. 1131, 1133; Campbell v. Order of Washington (1909) 53 Wash. 398 [102 P. 410, 413]; Moore v. Northwestern Mut. Life Ins. Co. (1906) 192 Mass. 468 [78 N.E. 488, 490]; Clemens v. Royal Neighbors of America (1905) 14 N.D. 116 [103 N.W. 402, 403-404]; Seitzinger v. Modern Woodmen of America (1903) 204 Ill. 58 [68 N.E. 478, 481-482]; Scherar v. Prudential Ins. Co. (1902) 63 Neb. 530 [88 N.W. 687, 688]; Cotter v. Royal Neighbors of America (1899) 76 Minn. 518 [79 N.W. 542, 543]; Haynie v. Knights Templars’ and Masons’ Life Indemnity Co. (1897) 139 Mo. 416 [41 S.W. 461, 464-465]; Spruill v. Northwestern Mut. Life Ins. Co. (1897) 120 N.C. 141 [27 S.E. 39, 40-41]; Tritschler v. Keystone Mut. Ben. Ass’n., supra, 36 A. 734, 734-735; Billings v. Accident Ins. Co. of North America (1892) 64 Vt. 78 [24 A. 656, 657]; De Gogorza v. Knickerbocker Life Ins. Co. (1875) 65 N.Y. 232, 237-238; cf. Minn. Stat., § 61A.031 (1982) [“The sanity or insanity of a person shall not be a factor in determining whether a person committed suicide within the terms of an individual or group life insurance policy regulating the payment of benefits in the event of the insured’s suicide . . . .”].)
It is true that a few cases do support a different reading of the clause— viz., that nonaccidental self-destruction is not within the suicide exclusion if the insured is “so insane” as to be unable to understand the physical nature and consequences of his act. This is the so-called “Kentucky rule”— named apparently after the jurisdiction in which a large percentage of the cases supporting it was decided. (See Annot., Insurance: Construction of “Sane or Insane” Provision of Suicide Exclusion (1966) 9 A.L.R.3d 1015, 1025-1026 [hereinafter Annot.].) I can discover no reason, however, why we should follow the Kentucky rule. Nor, to conclude from its silence, can the majority.
First, the cases supporting the Kentucky rule are in the distinct minority and are mainly older. (See, e.g., Christensen v. New England Mut. Life Ins. Co. (1944) 197 Ga. 807 [30 S.E.2d 471, 153 A.L.R. 794]; Muzenich v. Grand Carniolian Slovenian Catholic Union (1941) 154 Kan. 537 [119 P.2d 504, 138 A.L.R. 818]; National Life Ins. Co. v. Watson (1922) 194 Ky. 355 [239 S.W. 35, 35 A.L.R. 156].) Before we join such company, we *451are entitled to sound and persuasive reasons for doing so. The majority give us none.
Second, the minority rule rests on a construction of the term “suicide” that is not in accord with the popular understanding, and therefore frustrates the reasonable expectations of the insurer and especially the insured. “The majority view”—which I would follow—“adopts a plain meaning and popular definition of the term as covering any act of self-destruction. The minority”—which the majority here propose to adopt—“views the term in essentially a criminal law or technical concept holding that understanding and intent are deemed essential elements of a suicide.” (Nielsen v. Provident Life and Acc. Ins. Co., supra, 596 P.2d 95, 98; accord, Aetna Life Ins. Co. v. McLaughlin, supra, 380 S.W.2d 101, 102.) Yet we are obliged to interpret the words of the suicide exclusion clause, like all contractual language, “in their ordinary and popular sense, rather than according to their strict legal meaning” (Civ. Code, § 1644). We are also required to construe the clause, like all policy provisions, in such a way as to “eflfectuat[e] the reasonable expectations of the ordinary applicant” (Smith v. Westland Life Ins. Co. (1975) 15 Cal.3d 111, 122 [123 Cal.Rptr. 649, 539 P.2d 433]). The minority rule violates these basic principles of contract and insurance law.
Third, and most important, the Kentucky or minority rule is antithetical to the purpose of the suicide exclusion clause generally and the phrase “suicide, sane or insane” specifically. That purpose is to make the insured’s state of mind largely immaterial and thereby “effectively remove[] the necessity of grappling with the ‘shadowy and difficult to define’ line between sanity and insanity . . . .” (Nielsen v. Provident Life and Acc. Ins. Co., supra, 596 P.2d 95, 97, quoting Bigelow v. Berkshire Life Ins. Co., supra, 93 U.S. 284, 287 [23 L.Ed. 918, 919]; accord, Johnson v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, supra, 273 F.Supp. 589, 594-595.) In stark contrast, the minority rule requires even greater mental gymnastics in every case: under that rule, the issue whether an act of nonaccidental self-destruction falls within the suicide exclusion clause turns on such subtle distinctions as “the degree of insanity affecting the destructive act, which requires an investigation of the actual state of the insured’s mind at the time, with the result that if it is found that he had sufficient mentality to realize that the act performed would result in his death, and intended such a result, the death falls within the exclusionary clause although the motivation to kill himself may have arisen from his insane state, but that if he was so insane as not to realize that the act would be destructive to him, or to intend such a result, the act cannot be classified as ‘suicide’ for purposes of applying the exclusionary clause.” (Annot., supra, 9 A.L.R.3d 1015, 1018, fn. 9.)
*452Thus, the minority rule does more than merely reintroduce the very difficulty that the phrase “suicide, sane or insane” is intended to remove—it makes that difficulty more difficult still. If as is surely true “the line between sanity and insanity is often shadowy and difficult to define” (Bigelow v. Berkshire Life Ins. Co., supra, 93 U.S. 284, 287 [23 L.Ed. 918, 919]), how much more so must be the line between the minority rule’s “varying degrees or aspects of insanity.” (Aetna Life Insurance Company v. McLaughlin, supra, 380 S.W.2d 101, 106; see Johnson v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, supra, 273 F.Supp. 589, 594-595.)
To summarize: the clause excludes all nonaccidental self-destruction regardless of the insured’s state of mind; intent is therefore immaterial, and the trier of fact need determine only whether the act of self-destruction, objectively viewed, was accidental. In other words, “[i]f the act of self-destruction would be regarded as suicide in the case of a sane person, it would be so treated as to an insane insured . . . .” (Atkinson v. Life Ins. Co. of Virginia, supra, 228 S.E.2d 117, 120.)
III
Here the trial court ruled that plaintiff bore the burden of proving that the insured did not commit suicide and that she could carry such a burden by showing the insured lacked the requisite mental capacity to form the intent to take his own life. In so ruling, as both the majority and I conclude, the court erred. Where the majority and I disagree is in the nature of the proceedings on remand. The majority would have the insurer show, to avoid liability, that the insured committed the act of self-destruction with suicidal intent—but would apparently permit the beneficiary to recover in any event if she demonstrates that the insured was unable to understand the physical nature and consequences of his act. By contrast, I would have the insurer show simply that the insured’s death—which by stipulation of the parties resulted from an act of self-destruction—was nonaccidental.
The difference between the majority’s remand and mine is clearly substantial, and will make itself felt here and in the future. My view would entail a relatively simple and inexpensive inquiry, which is consonant with the plain meaning and purpose of the clause: was the insured’s death self-inflicted and accidental? The majority would require more of the same empty inquiry into the insured’s actual state of mind and his capacity to understand the physical nature and consequences of his act that has been pursued by the trial court twice, the Court of Appeal twice, and the majority now. Such a result would also—and most importantly—compel insurers to rewrite their standard exclusion clauses to except all death, accidental and nonac*453cidental, during the initial period of the policy, and thereby narrow coverage significantly.
Because the majority’s opinion is fundamentally flawed in its analysis and seriously harmful in its consequences, I dissent.

Folk belief is that “you’ve got to be crazy to kill yourself.” Yet suicide has been committed by persons in all strata of life and for motives rational and irrational. Demosthenes took poison to avoid capture by Macedonia, Hannibal to evade capture by Rome. Cleopatra is said to have chosen death from the bite of an asp, and Virginia Woolf took her life because she believed she was going mad. Celebrity status did not deter Jack London, Ernest Hemingway, James Forrestal and Marilyn Monroe. George Eastman, inventor of the Kodak camera, left a note, “To my friends: my work is done. Why not?”

On the third question, I agree with the majority that the burden of proving suicide rests squarely on the insurer: it must show that the suicide exclusion applies and thereby exempts it from liability. (Dennis v. Union Mut. Life Ins. Co. (1890) 84 Cal. 570, 571-572 [24 P. 120], overruled on another point in Zuckerman v. Underwriters at Lloyd’s (1954) 42 Cal.2d 460, 474 [267 P.2d 777]; accord, Rome v. Life and Cas. Ins. Co. of Tennessee (La. Ct. App. 1976) 336 So.2d 275, 277; Adcock v. Life Assur. Co. of Carolina (1976) 31 N.C.App. 97 [228 S.E.2d 654, 656]; Life and Cas. Ins. Co. of Tennessee v. Daniel (1968) 209 Va. 332 [163 S.E.2d 577, 580].)

Even whole life insurance insures against an unforeseeable event: the date of the insured’s death.

A suicide exclusion clause of limited duration will not, of course, avoid the costs of a planned suicide committed after the exclusionary period has expired. The insurer, however, evidently considers such costs, if any, insignificant—or at least worth bearing in order to offer, as a selling point, broad coverage after the exclusionary period. The insurer, in other words, agrees to cover the risk of suicide, “provided the suicide occurs sufficiently long after the taking out of the policy to satisfy the company that it was not contemplated when the insurance was applied for.” {Longenberger v. Prudential Ins. Co. of America, supra, 183 A. 422, 426-427.)

As I shall show, this is the very result of the majority’s misinterpretation of the clause.

For evidence of how high such derivative costs can be, we need look no further than the case before us. Although it has not been disputed that the insured died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, this action has been litigated in the trial court, then in the Court of Appeal, then in the trial court again, then in the Court of Appeal again, is now here, and will return for a third time to the trial court. More particularly, after the Court of Appeal incorrectly held in Searle I that the suicide exclusion clause applied only to “sane suicides,” it was necessary for the parties to conduct a four-day trial to determine whether the insured possessed the requisite mental capacity to form the intent to commit suicide, whatever that meant.