Mott v. Sovereign Camp Woodmen of the World

The love of life is so great that the law strongly presumes against death by suicide. Even when death is self-inflicted, the law will presume it was accidental until the contrary is made to appear. Grand Lodge A. O. U. W. v. Bannister, 80 Ark. 890; Industrial Mutual Indemnity Co. v. Watt, 95 Ark. 459; Columbian Woodmen v. Matlock, 144 Ark. 126. In the instant case, therefore, the burden was upon appellee to overcome the legal presumption against death by suicide, with proof sufficiently strong to exclude every reasonable conclusion, except that the death occurred by suicide. The nature of the…