Valley Forge Life Insurance Company appeals the entry of partial summary judgment against it and the entry of judgment against it for accidental death benefits under an insurance policy. We affirm.
David Wood sued Valley Forge for benefits under the accidental death benefits rider of a life insurance policy taken out by M. David Howell and Richard T. Smith on Mr. Howell’s life. Mr. Smith was the original beneficiary of the policy, and he later assigned the policy to the Richard T. Smith Family Trust. Mr. Wood is the trust’s trustee.
Mr. Howell was found dead after a drug and alcohol overdose in a Los Angeles hotel room. Two years after Mr. Howell died, Mr. Wood submitted a claim for accidental death benefits. Valley Forge denied coverage on the ground that Mr. Howell’s death was a suicide and a rider explicitly excluded suicide from coverage. Alternatively, Valley Forge maintained that coverage was precluded by the exclusion for deaths “caused or contributed to by sickness and disease” because Mr. Howell’s drug and alcohol addictions and depression contributed to the overdose.
Mr. Wood filed suit. Valley Forge raised the affirmative defense that the life insurance policy never went into effect because of alleged misrepresentations in the application, thus barring the claim, and it filed a counterclaim seeking to rescind the original policy. The district court 1 granted Mr. Wood’s motion for partial summary judgment against both this defense and the related rescission claim. The court also granted partial summary judgment to Mr. Wood on Valley Forge’s defense that Mr. Howell’s death was caused or contributed to by sickness and disease and therefore excluded from accidental death coverage.
After the case was transferred to a different district judge, 2 a jury trial was held on the sole issue of whether Mr. Howell’s death was a suicide or an accident. The district court admitted Mr. Howell’s death certificate and his autopsy report into evidence, but granted Mr. Wood’s motion to redact from both documents the coroner’s conclusion that Mr. Howell’s death was a suicide. The court’s jury instructions placed the burden of proof on Valley Forge to show that Mr. Howell had committed suicide; directed the jury to find against Valley Forge if it had a “fair question” as to Mr. Howell’s cause of death; and required Valley Forge to prove that Mr. Howell intended to take his life “then and there.” The jury determined that the death was accidental, and the district court entered judgment in Mr. Wood’s favor.
Valley Forge appeals the pre-trial orders granting partial summary judgment to Mr. Wood. In addition, Valley Forge appeals the judgment entered in favor of Mr. Wood following the jury verdict; the insurer contends that the district court erred at trial by redacting the coroner’s conclusion of suicide from the death certificate and the autopsy report and by improperly instructing the jury.
II.
We review
de novo
the district court’s grant of partial summary judgment against Valley Forge.
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. RLI Ins. Co.,
A.
We consider first Valley Forge’s argument that the policy was void
ab ini-
The application form states that the “insurance will not take effect until the policy is delivered while ... conditions remain as described in this application.” Relying on this language, Valley Forge maintains that the policy never “took effect” because when it was delivered certain “conditions,” ie., Mr. Howell’s income and net worth, were not as stated in the application. But we question the applicability of this provision to the case before us: We believe that by stating that the policy would not be effective unless conditions “remain[ed]” as described, the provision addresses situations where circumstances change after an application is completed but before delivery of the policy, not situations involving misrepresentations in the application itself. Valley Forge, however, did not rely on a change. Instead it alleged in its counterclaim that a “condition precedent” had not been satisfied because Mr. Howell’s statements regarding his income and net worth were “false when made and when the policy was issued.”
We note, moreover, that Valley Forge’s contention that the contract was void
ab initio
might be more persuasive if language to the contrary did not appear on the very page of the application that included the alleged misrepresentations. At the bottom of the financial questionnaire setting out figures for Mr. Howell’s income and net worth, and immediately above Mr. Howell’s signature, the form recites that “any material misstatement in this declaration, or elsewhere in this application, will render the policy, if issued,
voidable”
(emphasis added). Based on the plain language of this document, Valley Forge’s claim that the policy was void
ab initio
must fail. And even assuming that an ambiguity was created by a conflict between the statement in the questionnaire and the provision upon which Valley Forge relies, our conclusion would be the same because an ambiguity is construed against the insurer,
see Phelps v. U.S. Life Credit Life Ins. Co.,
As we have said, the policy was voidable, not void
ah initio.
It was therefore “in effect” for more than two years before Mr. Howell died, and thus the incontestability clause barred Valley Forge’s later rescission claim.
See Life & Cas. Ins. Co. of Tenn. v. Smith,
B.
We turn now to Valley Forge’s assertion that the district court erred in granting partial summary judgment to Mr. Wood on the question of whether the policy exclusion for death “caused by or contributed to by sickness or disease” applied. Valley Forge maintains that a jury should have determined whether Mr. Howell’s drug dependence and depression were diseases that caused or contributed to his death. The district court disagreed, con-
Because the Arkansas Supreme Court has not addressed the specific issue in this case, our task is “to predict how the Arkansas Supreme Court would resolve the issue if confronted with it.”
See Jackson v. Anchor Packing Co.,
In two cases of relevance, the Arkansas Supreme Court decided that where an accident aggravates a preexisting disease, the insurer is not relieved of liability on an accidental death policy.
See Life & Cas. Ins. Co. of Tenn. v. Jones,
We recognize that since Mr. Howell did not die from aggravation of a preexisting disease, Jones and Croley are not directly on point. Valley Forge’s argument here is that Mr. Howell’s disease caused the overdose, not that the overdose aggravated his preexisting alcoholism, drug addiction, and depression. But Jones and Croley stand for the general proposition that in cases like the present one, a court should not go further back up the line of causation than what is generally called a proximate cause. Applying that principle here, as we believe the Arkansas Supreme Court would do, we conclude that Mr. Howell’s drug addiction and depression are too remote to be proximate causes of Mr. Howell’s death, and those conditions thus cannot support the exclusion that Valley Forge argues for here.
III.
Valley Forge also appeals the district court’s decision to redact the coroner’s conclusion that Mr. Howell’s death was a suicide from the death certificate and the autopsy report before admitting them into evidence. We hold that the district court erred in redacting the evidence, but we nevertheless affirm the judgment because we conclude that the error was harmless.
The district court’s rationale for redacting the coroner’s conclusion is unclear from the record. Because it is also unclear whether the district court applied Arkansas or federal law and the parties dispute which law to apply, we emphasize that the Federal Rules of Evidence govern the admissibility of evidence in this diversity case.
See Sosna v. Binnington,
Although Federal Rule of Evidence 403(b) allows the district court to exclude otherwise admissible evidence that is more unfairly prejudicial than probative, that rule does not justify exclusion here. The coroner’s conclusion was certainly probative as to the cause of Mr. Howell’s death, and the only “prejudice” to Mr. Wood of admitting the evidence is that it helps Valley Forge’s case. We can discern no inherent unfairness in this evidence. Furthermore, under Federal Rule of Evidence 704(a), evidence such as the coroner’s opinion cannot be objectionable on the ground that “it embraces an ultimate issue to be decided by the trier of fact.” We thus conclude that the district court erred in excluding the evidence.
Nevertheless, when we consider the record as a whole, we are satisfied that the error was harmless. We affirm the district court’s judgment because we have a “reasonable assurance that the jury would have reached the same conclusion had the evidence been admitted.”
Adams v. Fuqua Indus. Inc.,
IV.
The remaining issues in the case involve contested jury instructions. In reviewing challenges to jury instructions, we ask “whether the instructions, taken as a whole and viewed in light of the evidence and applicable law, fairly and adequately submitted the issues in the case to the jury.”
Wheeling Pittsburgh Steel Corp. v. Beelman River Terminals, Inc.,
A.
Valley Forge asserts that the jury instructions improperly placed the burden on it to prove suicide, thus relieving Mr. Wood of his burden to prove accidental death. In ruling on Valley Forge’s motion for a new trial, the district court concluded that since the only possible causes of Mr. Howell’s death were suicide or accident, it would have been “confusing, unnecessary, and indeed, prejudicial to instruct the jury on Plaintiffs burden to prove accidental death.”
We believe that the district court fairly presented the issue to the jury. Arkansas law is clear that the insurer bears the burden of proving suicide,
Cypress Farms, Inc. v. Employer’s Life Ins. Co. of Am.,
B.
Valley Forge also maintains that the trial court misstated what Valley Forge was required to prove to prevail on its argument that the death was a suicide. The relevant instruction stated that if “there is a fair question” as to whether the death was due to an accident or to suicide, the jury should find that it was due to an accident. The court further instructed the jury that a “fair question is an honest question, one that is based on the evidence or lack of evidence.” The instruction was taken almost verbatim from O’Malley, Gre-nig, & Lee, 3 Federal Jury Practice and Instructions § 126.71 (5th ed.2000). The district court denied Valley Forge’s motion for a new trial based on this instruction, concluding that the instruction correctly stated what Valley Forge had to prove. We agree.
The instruction incorporates the presumption against suicide that exists under Arkansas law. “[P]roof of death of an insured from injuries received by him raises a presumption of accidental death ... and this presumption will continue until overcome by affirmative proof to the contrary.”
Metropolitan Cas. Ins. Co. v. Chambers,
The court’s instruction also properly stated the combined effect of the “strong” presumption against suicide,
see Security Life & Trust Co. v. First Nat’l Bank in Little Rock,
C.
The court’s jury instructions required Valley Forge to prove that “when [Mr. Howell] consumed the drugs and alcohol he did so with the intent then and there to take his life.” Valley Forge maintains that the phrase “then and there” improperly imposed a temporal element not found in the law and prejudiced its case. The district court held that the “then and there” language was not prejudicial because it added nothing to what Valley Forge was required to prove. We agree.
The challenged instruction fairly described what the jury had to find to conclude that Mr. Howell committed suicide. For Valley Forge to prove suicide, it needed to prove that Mr. Howell intended to commit suicide at the time of the overdose, that is “then and there.” It would not have been sufficient for Valley Forge to prove that Mr. Howell had a general desire to kill himself that was not fully formed or on which he did not intend to act when he overdosed.
For the reasons stated, we affirm the judgment of the district court.