Court Opinion

ID: 9445592
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:34:04.633494+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:20.567824
License: Public Domain

*89MARTIN, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
The opinion of the New York intermediate appellate court in Smith v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., 125 Misc. 670, 211 N.Y.S. 755, 757 (decided October 1, 1925), in my judgment controls decision in the instant case. There the court stated that the question presented was whether the estate of a man convicted of and electrocuted for murdering his wife, who was beneficiary of a policy of insurance on his life, could recover upon a policy which contained a provision that the interest of the beneficiary should vest in the insured upon her death. The court answered that question in the negative, stating that the rule would be otherwise were the policy payable to a beneficiary having a vested interest. The opinion asserted that, by killing the beneficiary, the- insured made the policy and its proceeds payable to himself and his estate. It was reasoned that in a legal sense, where the insured lost his life by operation of law as punishment for the crime of murder committed by him, the “situation is quite the same as it is when the insured commits suicide”: that his death is really brought about by his act in committing the crime. The New York court recognized the conflict in authorities and rejected those holding that the death of the insured by lawful execution for a crime does not absolve an insurance company from liability to his estate, citing decisions to that effect from Illinois, Tennessee and Texas. To the contrary, the opinion of the New York court cited with evident approval cases holding that there can be no recovery on, an insurance policy where the insured loses his life by lawful execution. Burt v. Union Central Life Ins. Co., 187 U.S. 362, 23 S.Ct. 139, 47 L.Ed. 216; Northwestern Mutual Life Ins. Co. v. McCue, 223 U.S. 234, 32 S.Ct. 220, 56 L.Ed. 419; Scarborough v. American Nat. Ins. Co., 171 N.C. 353, 88 S.E. 482; Collins v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., 27 Pa.Super. 353.
Near the end of'its opinion, the New York appellate court said: “The right to recover is conditioned’by a Sound pub-lie policy upon the insured’s not deliberately doing something which will make the policy mature. Therefore the act of the insured which accelerates its maturity, and thus benefits his estate or the beneficiary, should prevent recovery. Such holding does not work a forfeiture. It takes away no fixed right possessed by anyone, but merely prevents those who represent the insured or take through him from getting a benefit from his wrongful act.”
In holding the insurance company liable where the insured was electrocuted for the crime of murder in the Goldstein case, United States District Judge Mos-cowitz pointed out that, in the Smith case which has just been discussed, there was no’ incontestability clause in the policy of insurance there involved. But the opinion of the New York appellate court in the Smith case, supra, made the comment that in some of the cases on which 'the court relied the policies contained incontestability clauses; and that, notwithstanding this and despite the fact that .the period of contestability had expired, there could be no recovery on the policies where the insured met his death at the hand of justice. The North Carolina case, supra, and the Pennsylvania case, supra, were cited.
District Judge Moscowitz pointed out that, inasmuch as the New York insurance law. excluded liability for death caused in certain specified circumstances, there was no inclusion of death by legal execution and that it was a reasonable deduction that- an intention to permit such exception may not be applied. He considered tfeat the opinion in Udisky v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., 177 Misc. 960, 32 N.Y.S.2d 579, answered the insurance company’s argument that a clause expressly insuring against death by execution would be enforceable, inasmuch as such policy would carry the natural inference that it was secured in anticipation of the insured’s committing a crime.
But the decision of the trial court in the Udisky case, which Judge Moscowitz cited, was reversed on appeal. Udisky *90v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., 204 App.Div. 890, 35 N.Y.S.2d 1021, 1022 (decided June 22, 1942). In its reversing opinion, the Appellate Division said that the provision in the New York insurance law was not to be interpreted as changing public policy “where the insured suffers injury or dies in the course of, or in an attempt to commit a felony”; and that the New York statute was merely declaratory of existing law.
The trial judge in the case at bar considered that Judge Moscowitz had pronounced the New York law in this quoted paragraph [43 F.Supp. 767]: “In final analysis, the granting of recovery in a case like the present one in no way benefits the criminal who is now dead and at least benefits his named beneficiaries who in most instances will be the persons deprived of support and maintenance by his death. On the other side of the ledger is the purely speculative possibility that a man who knows his kin are cared for by his insurance is more apt to commit a crime punishable by death. In reply to such an assumption, it may well be asked what sort of crime deterrent the voiding of a man’s life insurance may be, when the penalty of death does not halt his criminal act.”
But that paragraph was not an actual analysis of the New York law, but followed the citation of an opinion of the Supreme Court of South Carolina in Weeks v. New York Life Insurance Co., 128 S.C. 223, 122 S.E. 586, wherein the beneficiary had recovered against the insurer upon principles of public policy similar to those involved here.
Moreover, at the very conclusion of his opinion, Judge Moscowitz stressed the fact that, in the cases of a number of notorious murderers, the many insurance companies involved did not defend liability upon the policies issued upon the lives of the murderers.
In Northwestern Mutual Life Ins. Co. v. McCue, 223 U.S. 234, 241, 32 S.Ct. 220, 56 L.Ed. 419, supra, it was argued by the attorney for the McCue children that their father, who had been executed for killing their mother, had insurance policies upon his life other than those issued by the Northwestern; that the other companies had paid off, evincing a general custom in insurance circles to acknowledge that the risk of lawful execution of the insured was actually covered by the policies. The Supreme Court held, nevertheless, that a policy of insurance, silent on the point, does not cover the death of the insured by the hand of the law. Obviously, no weight was attached to the actions of the other insurance companies in admitting liability.
For the foregoing reasons, I think the New York law prevents recovery by the appellee-widow on the insurance policies covering the life of her deceased husband, Roy Tarrence.