Bigelow v. Berkshire Life Insurance
Supreme Court of the United States
Error to the Circuit Court of the United States for the Northern District of Illinois. This is an action on two policies issued by the defendant on the life of Henry W. Bigelow. Each contained a condition in avoidance, if the insured should die by suicide, sane or insane ; and in such ease the company agreed to pay to the party in interest the surrender value of the policy at the time of the death of Bigelow.
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Error to the Circuit Court of the United States for the Northern District of Illinois. This is an action on two policies issued by the defendant on the life of Henry W. Bigelow. Each contained a condition in avoidance, if the insured should die by suicide, sane or insane ; and in such ease the company agreed to pay to the party in interest the surrender value of the policy at the time of the death of Bigelow. The defendant pleaded that Bigelow died from the effects of a pistol-wound inflicted upon his person by his. own hand, and that he intended by this means to destroy his life. To this the…
1Opinion of the CourtJustice Davis
There has been a great diversity of judicial opinion as to whether self-destruction by a man, in a fit of insanity, is within the condition of a life policy, where the words of exemption are that the insured “ shall commit suicide,” or “ shall die by his own hand.” But since the decision in Life Ins. Co. v. Terry, 15 Wall. 580, the question is no longer an open one in this court. In that case the words avoiding the policy were, “ shall die by his own hand; ” and we held that they referred to an act of criminal self-destruction, and did not apply to an insane person who took his own life. But…
2Cases cited2 opinions
- Life Insurance v. TerrySupreme Court of the United States · 1873
- Pierce v. Travelers' Life Insurance Co.Wisconsin Supreme Court · 1874
3Cited by97 opinions
- Washington v. GlucksbergSupreme Court of the United States · 1997
- Ritter v. Mutual Life Ins. Co. of NYSupreme Court of the United States · 1898
- Accident Insurance v. CrandalSupreme Court of the United States · 1887
- Supreme Commandery of the Knights of the Golden Rule v. AinsworthSupreme Court of Alabama · 1882
- Spruill v. Northwestern Mutual Life InsuranceSupreme Court of North Carolina · 1897
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