Our tаsk in this appeal is to decide whether the death of a person who is killed in an automobile collision while driving under the influence of intoxicating liquor is accidental within the meaning of a group life insurance рolicy insuring that person against accidental death.
*899 The case was submitted to the district court on an agreed statement which stipulated these pertinent facts: Jackie W. Freeman was an employee of Affiliated Food Stores, Inc. At the time of his death there was in effect a group life insurance policy issued by appellee covering Affiliated’s employees. The policy provided life insurance benefits of $15,000.00 for Mr. Freeman, together with an additional $15,000.00 if he should die from accidental bodily injury. On the night of August 14, 1976, Mr. Freeman consumed alcoholic beverages at a lounge in Dallas. At about 1:45 a. m. he left the lounge and drove his pickup truck on North Masters Drive, a public street in Dallas. At or near the 2400 block of that street, his pickup collided with a parked tractor/truck. He sustained internal injuries in the collision which were, indeрendent of all other sources, the direct cause of his death. At the time of the collision Mr. Freeman was intoxicated, his blood alcohol content being between .188% and .207%. The insurance policy did not cоntain any exclusion denying coverage either in the event the insured was intoxicated, or in the event he was engaged in an unlawful act.
Appellee paid the standard life insurance benefits to Mrs. Freeman, but refused to pay the accidental death benefit on the sole ground that Mr. Freeman’s voluntary act in driving while intoxicated rendered his death non-accidental. The district court agreed and denied Mrs. Freeman’s сlaim for the accidental death benefits.
The insurance policy provided that:
“If an employee while insured for this benefit sustains any accidental bodily injury which, independent of all other causes, is the direct cause of any loss shown in the Schedulе of Losses and Benefits, . Crown Life will pay, subject to the provisions of this policy, the amount provided for such loss . . . ”.
Neither “accident” nor “accidental bodily injury” is defined in the insurance policy.
In a suit to recover accidental death benefits provided by an insurance policy, proof that the insured died by violent and external means raises a presumption that the death was accidental.
Republic Nat. Life Ins. Co. v. Heyward,
The only evidеnce upon which appellee relies to rebut the presumption that Mr. Freeman’s death was accidental is the stipulation that at the time of the collision he was driving while intoxicated. It is contended thаt because such an act is a criminal act inherently involving substantial risk of harm, serious bodily injury and death are the readily foreseeable consequences of such conduct and are therefore not аccidental within the contemplation of the insurance policy. To support its contention ap-pellee relies upon
Hobbs v. Provident Life & Accident Insurance Company,
“The contrary result is of course the better one. While drunken driving is dangerous (and should be prevented) the public still regards such an accident as ‘accidental’. To rule to the contrary is to deny the terminology the ordinary meaning given by the public. . . . ”
*900 For cases following the majority rule see: Miller v. American Casualty Company of Reading, Pa.,377 F.2d 479 (6th Cir. 1967); Mozingo v. Mid-South Ins. Co.,29 N.C.App. 352 ,224 S.E.2d 208 (1976); Union Central Life Insurance Company v. Cofer,103 Ga.App. 355 ,119 S.E.2d 281 (1961); Stats v. Mutual of Omaha Insurance Co., 73 D.L.R.3rd 324 (Ontario Ct.App.1976). See also, 1A Appleman, Insurance Law and Practice, § 467 (Supp.1978), and compare Sivley v. American National Insurance Company,454 S.W.2d 799 (Tex.Civ.App.Amarillo 1970, writ ref’d n. r. e.). Mozingo v. Mid-South Ins. Co., supra, is especially close on the facts with the prеsent case.
The exact question has not been decided in Texas, but from analogous cases involving the general question of whether an insured’s voluntary conduct renders a death non-accidental, we have been able to distill what we consider is and should be the rule in a case of this type. The mere fact that a person’s death may have occurred because of his negligence, even gross negligence, does not prevent that death from being an accident within the meaning of an accident insurance policy. It is only when the consequences of the act are so natural and probable as to be expected by any reasonable person that it can be said that the victim, in effect, intended the result and it was therefore not accidental. We think that is what our Supreme Court meant when it said in
Hutcherson v. Sovereign Camp, W.O.W., 112
Tex. 551,
“There is every justification for his description of her conduct as dangerous and grossly negligent and for his view that, in terms of the foreseeability of the reasonable man, she was greatly at fault. This is far differеnt from finding that the insured actually and voluntarily ‘looked for’ or ‘courted’ the risk of the collision that killed her. 27 . . Accordingly, . the collision must be regarded as an accident and her death as resulting from ‘accidental bodily injuries’ within the meaning of the policy.”
Appellee also relies upon a line of decisions from Texas and other jurisdictions which hold that the deaths or injuries of persons which occur while such persons arе engaged in the commission of serious crimes are not accidental within the meaning of insurance policies. See
Ritchie v. John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Co.,
Upon public policy considerations, some courts have denied recovery of aсcidental death benefits where the insured was killed while in the commission of a serious crime, on the grounds that such a recovery would allow one to profit from his own wrong and would encourage crime. See Annot.,
Another rule reinforces our decision. An insurance policy is to be сonstrued strictly against the insurer and its terms are to be given the normal and usual meaning ascribed to them by ordinary persons.
Republic Nat. Life Ins. Co. v. Heyward,
supra;
Guardian Life Insurance Co. of America v. Scott,
There is yet another rеason why judgment should not have gone to the insurer. There is no proof or stipulation that Mr. Freeman’s intoxication had any causal relation to his death. For all the proof shows, his intoxication may not have сontributed whatever to the collision. There may have been a steering failure, a blowout, or any number of other occurrences which caused the tragedy. Even as to policies containing express exclusions of benefits when the insured is intoxicated, a causal relation between the intoxication and the death must be shown in order to deny coverage.
Harris v. Carolina Life Insurance Company,
Fla.,
For the reasons stated we conclude that the agreed facts showed, prima facie, that Jackie W. Freeman’s death was caused by accidental bodily injury within the meaning of the insurance policy in question. Therefore, the judgment of the district court denying recovery under the accidental death benefit provisions of the policy was erroneous.
The judgment is reversed and judgment is here rendered awarding appellant, Mrs. *902 Billie Darlene Freeman, the sum of $15,-000.00, plus interest at the rate of 6% per annum from August 15, 1976, to February 16, 1978, 2 plus $1,800.00 as statutory penalty, 3 with the attorney’s fees as found by the judgment below together with interest on the total recovery at the rate of 9% per annum from February 16, 1978, until paid. 4
Notes
. 1A Appleman, Insurance Law and Practice, § 467, n. 76.25 (Supp.1978).
. Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann. art. 5069-1.03;
Combined Insurance Co. of America v. Kennedy,
. Tex.Ins.Code Ann. art. 3.62.
. Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann. art. 5069-1.05;
Nederlandsch-Amerikaansche Etc. v. Vassallo,