MATURITY OF THE POLICY

(3) Under a "Sane or Insane" Suicide Clause.

DeGOGORZ A v. KNICKERBOCKER LIFE INS. CO.
Commission of Appeals of New York, 1875. 65 N. Y. 232.

466

Appeal from judgment of the General Terns of the Supreme Court in the second judicial department, affirming a judgment in favor of plaintiff entered upon a verdict of a jury.

This action was brought upon a policy of insurance issued by defendant upon the life of plaintiffs husband.

The policy contained a provision that it should be void and of no effect if the insured should "die by his own hand, sane or insane."

For some considerable time prior to October 21, 1870, Mr. Gogorza had some disease of his brain which seriously affected his mind, and on that day the was found in his room, in his own house, dead, a pistol having been discharged, by his own hand, into his mouth. The pistol belonged to his son, and there was no evidence of the circumstances of his death, except what appeared when he was discovered dead. *   *

REYNOLDS, C. The learned judge at the Circuit, among other things, instructed the jury, in substance, that if the act which caused the death of the assured was not a voluntary act, not the act of his own will, but an involuntary act when he was in a mental condition which rendered him incapable of exercising his will, then the defendant was liable. A verdict for the plaintiff having been rendered under this direction, I shall assume that the jury found that when the hand of the assured delivered the fatal shot he was wholly bereft of reason. This view of the result of the verdict is the most favorable that can be taken in aid of the plaintiff's claim, unless the death was purely accidental, which is scarcely pretended, and to which some reference will be hereafter made.

It is now to be regarded as the settled law of this country, and of England, that a clause in a policy of life insurance exempting the insurer from liability if the assured "die by his own hand," has reference to an intelligent or voluntary act, and not to a suicide committed by a party in a state of mental derangement so great that the act of self-destruction is to be regarded as wholly involuntary. * * *

In the present case, the provision which avoids the policy is, that if the assured "shall die by his own hand or act, sane or insane," the insurer shall not be liable. The question therefore is, whether the addition of the words "sane or insane" is to be considered of any legal effect. If not, the instruction to the jury in this respect was correct, and the verdict ought to be sustained; but if they are of any legal force, a different result must necessarily follow.