Cooper v. Prudential Insurance Co. of America

This action is by the beneficiary named in an insurance policy to recover under the accidental death benefit provisions of the policy a sum in addition to the regular death benefits. The insured was the husband of the plaintiff. The judge directed a verdict for the defendant and reported the question whether his action was error.

There was evidence that in the evening of November 6, 1948, the dead body of the insured, a man “a little better than 67 years of age,” was found in Silver Lake at Chesham, New Hampshire, where he and the plaintiff had occupied a cottage the preceding summer. He had…