This is an action against the General American Life Insurance Company, a corporation, defendant, wherein Bula Lankford, plaintiff, seeks to recover, as beneficiary, under a double indemnity provision of a life insurance policy, for the alleged accidental death of her husband, Steve L. Lankford, the insured thereunder. The parties will be referred to as they appeared in the trial court.
On the morning of May 23, 1946, Steve L. Lankford left home for the purpose of attending a union meeting and with the intent of going squirrel hunting later in the day. Some time during the day, his wife, the plaintiff herein, went over to the home of her sister, Mamie Ingram. Late in the afternoon, near sundown, plaintiff, her sister, Mamie Ingram, another sister, Lola Stinnett, and a nephew, Grady Rone, were at the home of the said Mamie Ingram when, without knocking, the said Steve L. Lankford entered the house in a drunken, vile and belligerent condition. He asked plaintiff what she was doing and slapped her. One of her sisters started to explain and he knocked her down. Then the other sister, Mamie Ingram, grabbed a pistol which the nephew had in his hand and shot and killed the insured.
At the time of his death there was in full force and effect a $1,000 insurance policy on the life of the said Steve L. Lankford, wherein the plaintiff herein was beneficiary. The said policy also provided that, “The Company will pay double the face amount of this policy in lieu of the death settlement above provided, if death is accidental as defined in the conditions hereinafter stated.”
“The Double Indemnity payable in event of the accidental death of the insured shall be due if * * * death result independently and exclusively of all other causes from bodily injuries effected directly from external, violent and accidental means, within ninety days from the happening of such injuries, of which, other than in the case of drowning, there shall be visible contusion or wound on the exterior of the body, except that this Double Indemnity will not be payable if the insured’s death shall result * * * directly or indirectly, wholly or in part, from poisoning, infection, or any kind of illness or disease, or from any violation of law by the insured. * * *”
A jury was waived and the case was tried to the court, resulting in a judgment for plaintiff. From such judgment, defendant has perfected this appeal. This court has not heretofore had before it the question of the effect of death of the insured occurring under circumstances such as in the case at bar.
In the case of Mid-Continent Life Ins. Co. v. Dunnington,
In summarizing the decisions dealing with situations similar to that in the case at bar, it is stated in
“ * * * the rule which is supported by nearly all the decisions seems to be that where the insured was the aggressor, no recovery can be had under a policy containing a ‘violation of law’ clause for his death occurring while the fight is on, even though his killing was unjustifiable under the circumstances. * * *”
One of the cases cited in support of that rule is Bloom v. Franklin Life Ins. Co.,
In the body of the opinion, the court said:
“The act of the assured in this case was the proximate cause of his death within the meaning of the law. A man who makes a violent assault upon a woman puts his own person in danger, for a father, a husband, or a child may interfere to protect the assailed woman, and may overcome the assailant by force. Strangers not only may interfere to protect the person violently assaulted, but are, in strict law, under a duty to interfere. The natural result of such an illegal act as that of the assured, thereiore, was to bring his person into danger, and as death resulted his own act was the proximate cause.”
The insurance policy sued upon in the case of Gresham v. Equitable Life & Acc. Ins. Co.,
“ * * * The shooting is accounted for easily and naturally by ascribing it to the fight. This is the proper explanation of it, whether it be regarded as a part of the fight proper or as a sequel to it. It was certainly embraced within the res gestae of the combat. It took place on the same stage and within the atmosphere of the antecedent performance. The homicide could well be treated as the culmination of the final scene, —the catastrophe of the drama. At the very least it was a bloody epilogue, and not an independent after-piece. Nor is it material that it was not down on the bill, but was wholly unexpected by one or both of the actors. Rarely, if ever, can the incidents or the result of a personal encounter be foreseen. A deadly weapon may make its appearance at the last moment, and a homicide be the result, although the fight intended and begun was one with ‘fist’ and ‘scull’ only. * * *”
In the case at bar, there is no conflict in the testimony. The deceased was violating the law by committing an assault and battery upon his wife and her sisters and had knocked one of them down. He was shot and killed while so violating the law and in an attempt to stop him. It is probable that he could have been stopped without the use of such extreme measures but that is not the question. The point to be determined is, Did his death “result * * * directly or indirectly, wholly or in part, * * from any violation of the law by insured” as provided in the insurance contract? We conclude that it did.
The case of Landry v. Independent Nat. Life Ins. Co.,
“To exempt the company, must the death result from some peculiar and special risk connected with the commission of crime? It seems to us not, and that it is sufficient to bring a case within the condition, if there is such a relation between the act and the death that the latter would not have occurred at the time if the deceased had not been engaged in the violation of law.”
The only conclusion that can be reached in the instant case is that insured met his death while violating the law; that such violation caused him to
The judgment is reversed, with directions to enter judgment for defendant.