Scales v. Home Life Ins.

HUTCHESON, Circuit Judge.

The suit was for accidental death benefits under a policy providing for payment if death resulted from bodily injury, “effected solely through external, violent and accidental means * * * and resulted directly and exclusively therefrom, independently of all other causes.” The claim was that Robert Scales, deceased insured, had within the policy, suffered such a death by shooting, at the hands of Henry Jackson, a negro tenant on his plantation.

The defense was (1) that the death was not accidental, and (2) that whether it was or not, it came under fhe proviso that “the…