Court Opinion

ID: 9625362
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 07:38:04.03706+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:25:41.549211
License: Public Domain

Harrison, J.,
dissenting.
The majority has failed to accord the wife-beneficiary the presumptions to which she is entitled. It was shown that Atkinson’s death was caused by violent and external means. This having been established, presumptions arose that the decedent’s death was accidental and was not suicidal. The burden was on the insurer to establish suicide by clear and satisfactory evidence to the exclusion of any reasonable hypothesis of accidental death. Life & Casualty v. Daniel, 209 Va. 332, 163 S.E.2d 577 (1968); Harless v. Atlantic Life Ins. Co., 186 Va. 826, 44 S.E.2d 430 (1947); and Life Ins. Co. v. Brockman, 173 Va. 86, 3 S.E.2d 480 (1939).
Atkinson was hallucinating and laboring under the delusion that the doctors and nurses were trying to keep him from seeing his wife; that they were gassing him through the various tubes in his body and by the air vents in his room; and that there were bugs crawling on his bed. The decedent had never previously manifested any suicidal tendencies or had any known reason to commit suicide. The entire thrust of Atkinson’s conversations and actions was that of a man concerned with his self-protection and his self-preservation. In freeing himself from the body restraints he tore out the tubes which had been inserted in his body. This accounts for the trail of blood from the bed to the window. There were no eyewitnesses to the accident, and *214there was no evidence of how it occurred. It is as reasonable to believe that decedent was seeking fresh air to rid his system of the imaginary poisoned gas, and that in his weakened condition he fell out of the window, as it is to believe that he “purposely” and by his own “volition” went through the open window. The trial judge found as a fact “that the decedent did not actually intend to take his own life”.
The only factual basis assigned for the majority opinion is that “[d]ecedent’s physician testified it was his opinion that Atkinson went out of the window on his own volition. . . .” The following extracts from the testimony of this physician, Dr. Harry Robert Yates, Jr., do not support that premise. Dr. Yates testified:
“He was getting along reasonably well, as far as people with this disorder do, post-operatively until the evening prior to his death, when the nurses reported that he was acting bizarrely and as was described, he was hallucinating and was really terrified at these things that were trying to get at him or the fact that he was being gassed, that there was something dreadful about to happen to him.
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“This, [referring to the toxic psychosis] in turn, I think, made him not capable of reacting in a normal way and whatever this dread .thing was that was after him, I think he was doing his darndest to get away from it.
^ ^ ^ ^
“The fall was the cause of his death.
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“Well, I think, [as to whether Atkinson jumped from the window of his own volition] if I can put it in what I think may be, I think he was trying to get away from something. He was not aware that he was on the eighth floor. Perhaps he thought he was on a ground floor somewhere, and I will just climb out this window, and it turned out the window was eight stories above the ground.
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“[H]e was not rational the last time I saw him. I don’t think he knew where he was.
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“That is true, [that Atkinson may have known or may not have known that he was on the eighth floor.] It would be analogous to *215me that if someone were chasing you and say was threatening you with a knife, and you were running along the edge of a mountain, and you looked back to see if the guy was gaining on you, and you ran off the cliff—I am not sure you wanted to jump off the cliff, but you went off anyway.
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“/ don't know whether he jumped or not. I think he went out of the window to escape whatever this thing was. [This answer given in response to the question whether Mr. Atkinson purposely jumped in order to escape the consequences of an imaginary peril.]
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“It was an irrational act. [responding to a question whether it was a voluntary act on his part by his own volition.]” [Emphasis supplied.]
In a letter [exhibit] dated January 12, 1972, Dr. Yates referred to Atkinson’s death as “an unfortunate accident”.
An exhaustive examination of the testimony in this case will not show whether Atkinson fell out of the window or jumped out to escape imaginary perils, or under the belief the window was on or near ground level. The attending physician speculated but was unwilling to say whether the decedent fell or jumped, and this court is in no better position to make such a judgment. The one thing that was established with complete certainty was that the decedent was not an insane person, did not intend to commit suicide, and was completely unaware of the peril or consequences of what he was doing. We should apply the same presumptions here that we have applied in previous cases, and that were recently applied in Schleunes v. American Cas. Co. of Reading, Pa., 528 F.2d 634, 639 (5th Cir. 1976), where Circuit Judge Roney said:
“ ‘The presumption against suicide will stand and be decisive of the case until overcome by testimony which shall outweigh the presumption.’
* * # # #
“Once plaintiff presented evidence showing external, violent death, under circumstances leaving suicide in doubt, the state’s presumption against suicide required defendant to overcome the presumption by establishing suicide to the exclusion of every other reasonable hypothesis. . . .”
*216I would further add that I regard the rule articulated in the Christensen decision as the sounder one. The language “self-destruction or self-inflicted injury, while sane or insane”, and exclusions similarly expressed, have spawned a great volume of litigation. The reason is that the language is ambiguous. It is not so precise as to exclude both suicide which is knowingly attempted and suicide which is done under a delusionary state.
The majority opinion holds: “The plain language of the exclusionary clause comprehends all purposeful self-destruction whether the suicidal act shall emanate from a sane person or one suffering from a mental aberration.” Among the cases cited and relied on in the opinion is Johnson v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., 404 F.2d 1202 (3rd Cir. 1968). The court there, constructing the clause “suicide while sane or insane”, said:
“[O]n its face that language plainly comprehends all purposeful self destruction, whether the suicidal intent and conduct shall emanate from a sane mind or a deranged one.”
In Johnson, an insured, beset with marital difficulties, and under a court order to stay away from his wife, violated that order, went to his home, spread fuel oil around a room and on his clothing and set fire to the premises^ and to his clothing. He left two notes to his wife written in crayon and lipstick, which were found at the scene of his death. He died of resulting burns. The court found there was no evidence that Johnson did not know what he was doing, and no allegation or contention which could support a reasonable conclusion that the decedent was unaware of the fatal consequences of his act. The court upheld the summary judgment of the district court. Significantly, it equated “purposeful” with “intentional” and observed:
“It follows that summary judgment was improper in the present case only if the record established a disputable issue of fact whether the insured, in his admitted derangement, was attempting to take his life when he immolated himself. Of course a deranged person can believe that he is immortal, or that fuel oil is water, or, on some other irrational basis, that saturating his clothes with fuel oil and applying a lighted match will not kill him. Or his mental disorder may be so extreme that he has no comprehension whatever of what he is doing. Any such showing would negate intentional self destruction.” 404 F.2d at 1204. [Italics supplied.]
*217In the Johnson opinion, as in the majority opinion, the key word is “purposeful”. “Purposely” means “intentionally, designedly, consciously, knowingly”. Black’s Law Dictionary 1400 (4th ed. 1951). Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 1847 (1966), defines “purposeful” to mean “full of determination; guided by a definite aim; not aimless or meaningless”. “Volition” is described in Webster’s, p. 2563, as “the act of willing or choosing; the act of deciding; the exercise of the will”. While the court found evidence that Johnson did act purposely and was aware of the fatal consequences of his act, there is not a scintilla of evidence that Atkinson acted intentionally, designedly, consciously or knowingly. The evidence is to the contrary. We only know that a physically ill man, under the delusion that his life was in peril, was missed from his eighth floor hospital room and was thereafter found dead of injuries obviously received from a fall.
The Court, in the case under review, has in effect added the word “purposeful” as a prefix to the word “self-destruction” in the policy’s exclusionary clause. It is to this action that I take exception. If it be the intent of an insurance company to deny liability where an insured is killed or sustains bodily injuries as a result of suicide or of self-inflicted injuries, while sane or insane, and whether such injuries are inflicted consciously or intentionally, this should be clearly stated in its policy. Applying the holding of the majority, and under the exclusionary clause as here construed, could a somnambulist recover for a self-inflicted injury received while walking in his sleep? Could a hospital patient, heavily sedated with drugs and under their influence, who gets out of bed and jumps down the stairwell, recover? And what would be the status of a policyholder who inflicts injury to himself while partially under the influence of anesthesia or hypnosis?
I would reverse and enter final judgment for appellant.