Strauss v. Teachers Insurance & Annuity Ass'n

Gloria Strauss, the divorced wife of the decedent, Dr. Elliott W. Strauss, appeals from a judgment holding that the individual plaintiffs, the children of his first *358wife, were entitled to the proceeds of a lifetime annuity contract that guaranteed benefits for a twenty-year period. Gloria was the original named beneficiary; the question is whether Dr. Strauss effectively changed that designation in his lifetime.

The case was tried to a jury, which heard evidence to this effect. Dr. Strauss, a resident of Cambridge, was a physician and for seventeen years a biomedical researcher on the faculty…