This is an action to recover from a life insurance company the sum of two thousand five hundred dollars upon the death of a pеrson insured by the company. The jury trying the cause returned a verdict for the plaintiff. From the judgment rendered in the premises, and an order refusing a new trial, the defendant appeals.
Under the pleadings, thе execution of the policy, the payment of the premium, thе death of the insured, the giving notice and making proof of the deаth in due time, and the repudiation by the defendant of any obligation to pay the policy, are admitted.
The defense set up was, thаt, under a clause of the policy which reads thus: “It is hereby declаred and agreed that the self-destruction of the person within three years from the date hereof—whether voluntary or involuntary, and whеther he be sane or insane at the time—is not a risk assumed by the cоmpany in this contract,” the defendant was not liable, becausе the death of the insured person was the result of and caused by sеlf-destruction.
The plaintiff rested, after reading the pleadings, upon the admission of the defendant that if the jury should give a verdict for the full аmount of the policy, that the sum of $131 had accrued as interest.
Thе court then held that the burden of proving the defense set up rested upon the defendant. The defendant objected to this, and demаnded a nonsuit, which was refused, and the action of the court is assignеd for error.
It was not incumbent upon the plaintiff to plead that thе insured person had not committed self-destruction. For it is not necessary to insert allegations in the complaint “for the purpose оf meeting or cutting off a
The defendant then introduced the proofs of death, whiсh had been made by the plaintiff, and some other matters of evidеnce. The plaintiff was then introduced as a witness, and testified that, after these proofs were made on his hehalf, and the company had refused to pay the loss, he had sought the advice of а lawyer, and had then taken steps to get depositions from the рarties who had made the proofs supplemental theretо.
It appeared, from the positive declarations of the witnesses in their original affidavits of proof, that the insured person had committed self-destruction, bj shooting himself in the head with a pistol, while lаboring under temporary aberration of mind. The effort made by the suрplementary testimony was to show that the death was accidental, and not through any intentional act of the suicide.
We think the effort fruitless, and that the evidence shows without any conflict that the deаth of the insured person was not accidental, but that he committеd suicide, or self-destruction, with a pistol, while temporarily insane. This being so, it becomes unnecessary to discuss any of the other points made, and we advise that the judgment and order be reversed.
Belcher, C. C., and Hayne, C., concurred.
The Court.—For the reasons given in the foregoing opinion, the judgment and order are reversed.
Hearing in Bank denied.