25 S.E.2d 796 | Ga. | 1943
1. Where a contract of life insurance was issued by a Florida corporation to one domiciled in that State, naming the wife of the insured as beneficiary, with the right reserved to the insured to change the beneficiary, and subsequently the insured, while domiciled in the State of Georgia, revoked the designation of his wife as beneficiary under such policy and directed that its proceeds be payable to his estate, in a contest between his administratrix (he having died a resident of Georgia) and the children of the deceased over the proceeds of the policy, the administratrix is entitled to prevail, although at the time the policy was issued and at the time of his death there was of force in the State of Florida a statute providing, in part, that "Whenever any person shall die in this State leaving insurance on his life, the said insurance *23 shall inure exclusively to the child or children and husband or wife in equal portions," or to any designated beneficiary, and that the proceeds of such insurance should in no case be subject to the claims of creditors. This is true, independently of the principles: lex loci contractus, and lex domicilii decedendis.
1. If the law of Georgia is to control the disposition of the proceeds of this life insurance, the administratrix was entitled to prevail. The Code, § 113-901, after declaring the law of descent with respect to realty says: "The title to all other property owned by a decedent shall vest in the administrator of his estate for the benefit of the heirs and creditors." All personalty of a deceased person passes and is administered according to the law of his domicile. Latine v. Clements,
The question now to be determined is whether, in view of the reasons appearing in the foregoing statement, if we should be required to give effect to the Florida statute in respect to the funds in controversy rather than the law of our own State, the terms of the statute require a judgment contrary to that rendered. We find little uniformity in the rulings made by the various courts as to what law shall govern in the many varying situations presented upon the death of an insured. Many of the cases examined on this phase of the case have turned on the question of some provision in the policy itself which specified what law was to control, but even in those cases the terms of the policy have not always been allowed to be enforced. It has sometimes been held that the law of the State where the policy was issued (that is at the domicile of the company itself), more often that the law of the State where the policy was said to have been executed and delivered, that is, in some other State where an agency is located at the domicile of the insured, must control. In some instances these places have been the same. It has also been held that the law of the State where the contract was to be performed (as distinguished from the place where it was executed) should control. It has also been held that the law of the State where the insured was domiciled, that is, lex domicilii decedendis, would control, especially in reference to beneficiaries and claims over the proceeds of the policy. All of this is observed without reference to many other varying circumstances where two or more of these several conditions did not coincide. An annotation to the case of United States Mortgage Trust Co. v. Ruggles,
The Florida statute relied upon begins with the language "Whenever any person shall die in this State leaving insurance on his life," and then provides that the proceeds of such insurance shall inure exclusively to the benefit of the surviving husband or wife and children, but provides that others also may be made beneficiaries, and that if properly specified as a beneficiary even a creditor may receive the proceeds of such policy of insurance. It does not specifically refer to policies executed and delivered in that State, and by its terms seems to apply only to persons domiciled therein at the time of death. Therefore on first impression it would seem to be a statute primarily concerned with the control of personalty of the deceased person, and be related to the law of descent and distribution rather than directly to the construction and effect to be given to a policy of insurance. Its purpose and its terms seem to be to exempt the proceeds of insurance, where otherwise they would be a part of the estate, from the claims of creditors. In other words, it seems primarily to concern the administration of estates. It does not specify what a policy must contain, or undertake to say how it shall be construed. It does not undertake to distinguish between policies issued elsewhere from those executed in Florida. It does not legislate upon an insurance contract, but upon the proceeds arising from one, and then only upon the death *27
of the insured in that State. It does not lay any prohibition on either the insurer or the insured. It merely says, in a case where the policy should be made payable to the estate, that it shall be exempt from the claims of creditors and held for the use of the surviving spouse and children. See Gilchrist v.
Jeffcoat,
Judgment affirmed. All the Justices concur.