Patton v. Texas & Pacific Railway Company,
179 U. S. 658,
sustained and followed as to the relations of the trial court to
the jury in regard to its finding.
The question whether the deceased did or did not commit suicide
was one of fact, and after the jury had found that he did not, and
its finding had been approved by the trial court and by the court
of appeals, this Court would not be justified in disturbing it.
On April 5, 1895, a certificate of membership in the amount of
$3,000 was issued by the Supreme Lodge to Frank E. Beck, payable on
his death to his widow, Mrs. Lillian H. Beck. The application for
membership contained
Page 181 U. S. 50
this stipulation:
"It is agreed that, if death shall result by suicide, whether
sane or insane, voluntary or involuntary, or if death is caused or
superinduced by the use of intoxicating liquors or by the use of
narcotics or opiates, or in consequence of a duel, or at the hands
of justice, or in violation of or attempt to violate any criminal
law, then there shall be paid only such a sum in proportion to the
whole amount of the certificate as the matured life expectancy at
the time of such death is to the entire expectancy at date of
acceptance of the application by the board of control."
It was on the conduct of Beck before he committed suicide an
instruction was asked for, which the trial court, in its charge to
the jury referred to as follows:
"Here is an instruction asked, which I refused, and I wish to
state here that is the instruction that, if Frank E. Beck was
violating any law at the time he was killed, why under the policy,
he cannot recover -- under the bylaws. As I understand that bylaw,
it must be a case where a man is in the act of violating the law.
For instance, if a man in breaking into a house is killed in the
act, he cannot recover. If a man is in a quarrel and gets killed,
he cannot recover. But if a man contemplating that he was going to
kill his wife if she didn't go home with him, but was not in the
act and doing that at the time lie was killed, that clause of the
policy does not apply."
Held that this instruction correctly states the
law.
The plaintiff, in her proofs of loss, stated that the deceased
came to his death by suicide, and to that effect was the verdict of
the coroner's jury. With respect to this, the court charged that
there was no estoppel; that the plaintiff could explain the
circumstances under which she signed the statement, and that while,
standing alone, it would justify a verdict for the defendant, yet,
if explained, and the jury were satisfied that the death did not
result from suicide, she was not concluded by this declaration.
Held that there was no error in this ruling.
On April 5, 1895, a certificate of membership, in the amount of
$3,000, was issued by the plaintiff in error to Frank E. Beck,
payable on his death to his widow, Lillian H. Beck. The application
for membership contained this stipulation:
"It is agreed that, if death shall result by suicide, whether
sane or insane, voluntary or involuntary, or it death is caused or
superinduced by the use of intoxicating liquors or by the use of
narcotics or opiates, or in consequence of a duel, or at the hands
of justice, or in violation of or attempt to violate any criminal
law, then there shall be paid only such a sum in proportion to the
whole amount of the certificate as the matured life expectancy at
the time of such death is to the entire expectancy at date of
acceptance of the application by the board of control. "
Page 181 U. S. 51
On October 31, 1896, he was killed by the discharge of a gun at
the time held in his hands. After his death, a coroner's jury found
that he died
"by shooting himself in the head with a double barrel shotgun,
with the purpose and intent of committing suicide, while
temporarily insane, due probably to the use of intoxicants. The the
shooting was done in the outside water-closet of the premises now
occupied by the family of C. B. Nolan, and that he threatened to
kill his wife before killing himself."
Proofs of death were furnished by his widow, in which question
14 and answer were as follows: "14. Was death caused by suicide or
violence or from other than natural causes? A. Suicide."
On April 13, 1897, an action was commenced in the District Court
of the First Judicial District of the State of Montana, in and for
the County of Lewis and Clark, by his widow to recover $3,000, the
amount of the insurance. This action was removed by the defendant
to the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of
Montana. The answer set up specifically that the insured died from
"self-destruction and suicide," and, further, "that, prior to said
Beck's taking his own life, said Beck was attempting to and did
violate the criminal laws of the State of Montana." In the circuit
court a trial was had which resulted in a verdict and judgment for
plaintiff. The judgment was taken by the defendant to the United
States Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and by that
court affirmed May 16, 1899, 94 F. 751, to reverse which judgment
of affirmance this writ of error was sued out.
MR. JUSTICE BREWER delivered the opinion of the Court.
The principal question discussed by counsel for plaintiff in
error, and the important question in the case is whether the trial
court erred in refusing a peremptory instruction to find a
Page 181 U. S. 52
verdict for the defendant. It is said that the testimony
established the fact of suicide, and that there was no sufficient
doubt in respect thereto to justify a submission of the question to
a jury. We have recently had before us a case coming, like this,
from the trial court, through the court of appeals,
Patton v.
Texas & Pacific Railway Company, 179 U.
S. 658, in which the action of the trial court in
directing a verdict was vigorously attacked as an invasion of the
province of the jury to determine every question of fact. That case
stands over against this, for there, the trial court directed a
verdict. Here, it refused to direct one. In each case, its action
was approved by the court of appeals. In that case, although the
question was doubtful, we sustained the rulings of the lower
courts, and the considerations which then controlled us compel a
like action in the present case. We said that a trial court had the
right, under certain conditions, to direct a verdict one way or the
other (citing several cases to that effect), but added:
"It is undoubtedly true that cases are not to be lightly taken
from the jury; that jurors are the recognized triers of questions
of fact, and that, ordinarily, negligence is so far a question of
fact as to be properly submitted to and determined by them.
Richmond & Danville Railroad v. Powers, 149 U. S.
43."
"Hence it is that seldom an appellate court reverses the action
of a trial court in declining to give a peremptory instruction for
a verdict one way or the other. At the same time, the judge is
primarily responsible for the just outcome of the trial. He is not
a mere moderator of a town meeting, submitting questions to the
jury for determination, nor simply ruling on the admissibility of
testimony, but one who in our jurisprudence stands charged with
full responsibility. He has the same opportunity that jurors have
for seeing the witnesses, for noting all those matters in a trial
not capable of record, and when in his deliberate opinion there is
no excuse for a verdict save in favor of one party, and he so rules
by instructions to that effect, an appellate court will pay large
respect to his judgment. And if such judgment is approved by the
proper appellate court, this Court, when called upon to review the
proceedings of both courts, will rightfully be much influenced by
their concurrent opinions."
P.
179 U. S.
660.
Page 181 U. S. 53
Whether the deceased committed suicide was a question of fact,
and a jury is the proper trier of such questions. It is not
absolutely certain that the deceased committed suicide. The
following are the facts, at least, from the testimony, the jury was
warranted in finding them to be the facts: the deceased and his
wife had been married some six years. They had one child, a little
girl, of whom he was very fond. They lived happily together except
when he was drinking, and then he became irritable, and they
quarreled. For six weeks prior and up to four days before his
death, he had not been drinking. The only evidence that he ever
though of taking his life is the testimony of a domestic who had
worked in the family for two or three years, but had left a year
and four months before his death, that, when once she called his
attention to the fact that he was drinking heavily, his reply was
that "a man that has as much trouble as he had, the sooner the end
came the better," and a similar remark at another time, that such a
man "would be better off dead than living." Two days before his
death, his wife left her home and went to a neighbor's. He tried to
persuade her to return, but she refused to do so while he was
drinking. There were two guns in his house, one a single-barrel
shotgun, belonging to his wife, and one a double barrel shotgun,
his own. The domestic then employed had concealed both by direction
of Mrs. Beck. The day before the killing, he went to a store in the
city and hired a gun. He was at home the day of his death, sleeping
a good deal. Late in the afternoon, he got up and called for his
gun, saying he was going hunting. Evidently he got his own gun or
the gun he had hired the day before. In the evening, he went to the
house where his wife was staying and sought admission. A friend was
with him. Admission was refused. He became demonstrative, and a
call was made for a policeman, who soon came in a hack. The
breaking of glass suggested that he had gotten into the house. The
policeman went inside, when the hack driver who had brought the
policeman called out that the deceased had gone into the back yard
and into a watercloset. The hack driver heard him go into the
closet, and after a minute or so heard him step outside, and
immediately the gun was discharged, and on examination
Page 181 U. S. 54
he was found with the upper part of his head shot off. It was so
dark that no one saw the circumstances of the shooting. Whether it
was accidental or intentional is a matter of surmise. The
undertaker testified that there was a mark on the face under the
left eye as though the face had been pressed to the barrel of the
gun; that there were no powder marks on the face as there would
have been had the gun not been held close to the skin. But whether
that mark, if it came from the gun, was because he deliberately
placed his head on the top of the gun, or, as a drunken man,
stumbled and fell against it, is a matter of conjecture. There was
a dispute as to whether, in view of the length of the gun and the
shortness of his arm, he could have reached the trigger without the
aid of a pencil or piece of wood, no trace of which was found, or
indeed looked for. Under those circumstances, it is impossible to
say that beyond dispute he committed suicide. The discharge of the
gun may as well have happened from the careless conduct of a
drunken man as from an intentional act. At any rate, the question
was one of fact, and the jury found that he did not commit suicide,
and after its finding has been approved by the trial court and the
court of appeals, we are not justified in disturbing it.
Neither can it be said that death came "in violation of or
attempt to violate any criminal law." Before he left home with the
gun. he said he was going hunting. While from his conduct he
apparently changed his mind, and doubtless went to the house where
his wife was stopping with the view of persuading or compelling her
to return home, and may have intended violence against her if she
refused, yet the death resulted not as a consequence of any
violation or attempt to violate the criminal law. In this respect,
the court charged the jury as follows:
"Here is an instruction asked which I refuse, and I wish to
state here that is the instruction that, if Frank E. Beck was
violating any law at the time he was killed, why, under the policy,
he cannot recover -- under the bylaws. As I understand that bylaw,
it must be a case where a man is in the act of violating the law.
For instance, if a man, in breaking into a house is killed in the
act, he cannot recover. If a man is in a quarrel and gets killed,
he cannot recover. But if a man contemplating
Page 181 U. S. 55
that he was going to kill his wife if she didn't go home with
him, but was not in the act and doing that at the time he was
killed, that clause of the policy does not apply."
This instruction correctly states the law. The death must in
some way come as a consequence of the violation or attempted
violation of the criminal law, and the stipulation does not apply
when it is simply contemporaneous and in no manner connected with
the alleged violation or attempt to violate. For instance, if the
deceased had started with the avowed intent to to kill his wife,
and while walking down the street a tree had fallen and killed him,
the fact that he was starting upon an intentional violation of the
law would not make this stipulation applicable, because the cause
of his death would be entirely disconnected from the criminal act.
So here, whatever may have been the general thought and purpose
running in his mind as he went to the house where his wife was, his
act in going into and stepping out of the water-closet was in no
manner connected with or part of an attempt to carry out any
criminal purpose, and at that time came the shot, intentional or
accidental, which killed him.
These are the substantial matters presented in the record. There
are one or two minor questions. For instance, when the undertaker
was on the witness stand, the defendant produced a gun, and asked
him to show the jury how the mark which he said he found on the
face of the deceased could be caused, and the gun was used for that
purpose. On cross-examination, it appeared that his arm was not
long enough to reach the trigger, and therefore to fire if off in
the position in which he had placed it, he needed a pencil or
something of that kind. Subsequently, the plaintiff introduced
testimony tending to show the length of the arm of the deceased and
the improbability of his being able to reach the trigger, with his
face on the muzzle, as described by the undertaker, which testimony
was objected to on the ground that the gun had not been identified
as the one which had caused the death, but the objection was
overruled and the testimony admitted. There was testimony
subsequently offered by her as to its identity, but that testimony
was, to say the least, not clear and satisfactory, so that it
cannot be said
Page 181 U. S. 56
that the gun was fully identified as the one which caused his
death. Still, we cannot think that this furnishes a sufficient
ground for reversing the judgment. The defendant produced the gun,
and while it cannot be said that the mere production carried with
it a declaration that this was the gun which caused the death, yet
it certainly suggested the fact, and if not so, it ought to have
offered testimony to that effect. It presented the gun for use and
illustration before the jury, and there was no material error in
permitting the plaintiff to use the same gun for the purposes of
other illustration, especially when she followed that with
testimony tending, although perhaps only slightly, to identify
it.
Another matter is that the plaintiff in her proofs of loss
stated that the deceased came to his death by suicide, and to that
effect was the verdict of the coroner's jury. With respect to this
matter, the court charged that there was no estoppel; that the
plaintiff could explain the circumstances under which she signed
the statement, and that while, standing alone, it would justify a
verdict for the defendant, yet, if explained, and the jury were
satisfied that the death did not arise from suicide, she was not
concluded by this declaration. We see no error in this ruling. None
of the elements of estoppel enter into the declaration. The
condition of the defendant was not changed by it, and if under a
misapprehension of facts she made a statement which was not in fact
true, she could explain the circumstances under which she made the
statement and introduce testimony to establish the truth.
Some other matters are mentioned in the brief of plaintiff in
error, but nothing that we deem of sufficient importance to deserve
notice. We see no error in the judgment, and it is
Affirmed.
