104 F. 638 | 8th Cir. | 1900
Lead Opinion
This action is founded on a certificate of membership issued by the Knights Templars’ & Masons’ Life Indemnity Company, the plaintiff in error, to John P. Jarman, by the terms of which a certain sum of money, hereafter mentioned, was payable to Rosa B. Jarman, the wife of John P. Jarman, on the death of the latter. The plaintiff in error will he hereafter designated as the “'defendant” or the “defendant company.” The certificate was issued and delivered on October 25, 1885. When it was issued the constitution or by-laws of the defendant company, which were indorsed on the back, of the certificate, provided “that a policy of membership for $5,000 shall he good for all money in the death fund arising from one assessment, provided it shall not exceed $5,000, and all the money paid on the policy in assessments”; and Jarman’s certificate declared on its face that the defendant company would pay “to Rosa B. Jarman, wife, the children or heirs of said member, and in the order named, :: * * the sum of five t housand dollars, and all the money paid on the policy in assessments, subject to the limitation as to the amount of such payment as is provided in section one (1) of article seven (7) of the constitution, on the back of (his policy.” By an amendment to the constitution or by-laws which was adopted on January 8, 1889, the company limited its liability to refund all assessments that might have been paid to such as were paid “for the first five years” of membership; and by later
In the case of Indemnity Co. v. Berry, 4 U. S. App. 353, 1 C. C. A. 561, 50 Fed. 511, it was held by this court, affirming the decision of Judge Caldwell on the circuit (Berry v. Indemnity Co., 46 Fed. 439), that a certificate or policy of insurance which was executed by the defendant company and delivered in the state of Missouri to a citizen of that state prior to 1887, and was in the same form, substantially, as the policy now under consideration, was a Missouri contract, and a policy of insurance, and that, being such, it was subject to the provisions of section 5855 of the Kevised Statutes of Missouri of 1889, which declares, in substance, that, in suits on policies of insurance on life issued by any company doing business in the state of Missouri, it shall be no defense that the insured committed suicide, unless it is shown to the satisfaction of the court or jury trying the case that the insured contemplated committing suicide at the time he made his application for the policy, and that any stipulation in a life insurance policy to the contrary shall be void. The correctness of that view is not challenged on the present occasion, and as the policy in suit was issued to a- citizen of Missouri, and delivered to bim in that state, and the initial assessment there paid, it follows that when the policy was delivered it covered the risk of suicide, by virtue of the local statute. On March 30, 1887, nearly two years after the policy in suit was issued, the legislature of the state of Missouri enacted a law with reference to insurance companies doing business on the assessment plan, which nqw appears in the Bevised Statutes of that state for the year 1889, as article 3, c. 89 (being sections 5860 to 5872, both inclusive). This act placed foreign insurance companies doing business in the state on the assessment plan under the supervision of the insurance department of the state, and one section thereof (being section 5869) subjected such foreign assessment companies to all the provisions of section
‘•Provided, always, that nothing herein contained shall subject any corporation doing business under this article to any other provisions or requirements of the general insurance laws of this state, except as distinctly herein set forth.”
Section 5912, to which reference was thus made, related wholly to the mode of obtaining service on foreign insurance companies doing business within the state of Missouri; and it is accordingly claimed that the operation of the proviso was to relieve insurance companies doing business on the assessment plan, as distinguished from companies doing business in other ways, from the disability imposed by section 5855, to plead suicide as a defense, inasmuch as section 5835 forms a part of the general insurance laws of the state, and was not incorporated into the act of March 30, 1887, relating to assessment companies. It is by no means certain that the proviso in (piesLion was intended by the lawmaker to except assessment companies from the operation of section 5855. The legislature did not see fit to repeal that section, but left it standing and in full force as a pari: of the statute law of the state, — at least, in so far as it affected ordinary life companies; and it is difficult 'to assign any reason for prohibiting companies of the latter ]:ind from pleading the defense of suicide which does not apply with equal force to assessment companies. It has been held, however, in Haynie v. Indemnity Co., 139 Mo. 416, 41 S. W. 461, that from the date of its adoption the proviso did exempt assessment companies from the operation of section 5855, and enable them to plead suicide as a defense to policies thereafter issued which by their terms excluded the risk of death by suicide. Accepting that as an interpretation of a local law by the highest court of the state, which this court is required to adopt, we pass to the inquiry whether it was competent: for the legislature, by the proviso in the act of March 30, 1887, to relieve the defendant company from the operation of section 5855, as respects policies theretofore issued and then outstanding, which were dearly subject to its provisions when they were issued. In considering this question, it must be borne in mind that section 5855 not only provides that, in suits on life insurance policies issued by companies doing business in the state of Missouri, it shall be no defense that the insured committed suicide, but also declares that “any stipulation in the policy to the contrary shall be void.” The effect of this statute upon the policy in controversy was to expunge the provision which is found therein, in substance, that it should become null aud void if Jarman took his own life, either sane or insane. The contract, by force of the statute, took effect as it would have done if no such clause as that last referred to had been inserted, and embraced the risk of death by suicide as well as from other causes. Moreover, in legal contemplation, the first and all subsequent premiums or assessments were paid by the insured in consideration of the assumption by the insurer of the risk of death by suicide. as well as from other causes, since the statute rendered the agreement to the contrary utterly meaningless and nugatory. In
While on this branch of the case another point will be noticed briefly, simply because it is insisted upon in the argument that was made in behalf of the defendant company. It is said that, by a long line of adjudications prior to the adoption of the Missouri statute excluding- the defense of suicide, it had been determined that the words “committed suicide,” as used in insurance policies, meant “a voluntary act when a person was in the possession of his ordinary reasoning faculties”; that the words “committed suicide” are used in that sense in section 5855, and, being so used, that the statute is not broad enough to cover the present case, because it is stipulated that Jarman took his own life “while insane to such an extent as to be incapable of understanding the nature or consequences of his act.” A proper degree of respect for the legislature requires us to overrule this contention, since it is not probable that any legislative body in its right mind would declare that insurance companies shall not be allowed 'to make the defense of suicide if the insured
We have next to determine whether the amendments to the defendant's constitution of date January 8, 1889, February 20, 1894, and January Id, 1896, whereby it expunged those provisions of its constitution which obligated it, on the death of a member, to refund “all money paid on the policy in assessments,” have the effect of depriving the plaintiff of the right to recover the assessments paid, on the policy in controversy, and of limiting her right of recovery to the principal sum therein mentioned. The argument in favor of giving the amendments such effect as is last described is based wholly on the concluding paragraph of Jarman’s application for the policy, which is as follows:
“I fii.-tluir agree, if accepted, to abide by the constitution, rules, and regulation;; of ilio company as they now are, or may be constitutionally changed hereafter.”
Conceding, in accordance with the stipulation of the parties, that the amendments in question were adopted legally in the manner prescribed by the defendant’s constitution and by-laws, we observe in the first instance that there is nothing to indicate that the amendments were intended to have a retrospective operation, and reduce the amount payable on certificates or policies like the one at bar, which was then outstanding, and, in plain language, obligated the company to refund all assessments Shat might be paid thereon. The present record contains no evidence which shows affirmatively that the amendments were intended to operate retrospectively and extinguish the obligation to refund assessments that had been expressly assumed, while the fact that outstanding policies were not recalled, and the promise to refund assessments expunged or erased from the face of such policies, fairly indicates, we think, that the amendments were designed to operate prospectively on policies thereafter executed. Aside from this view of the case, it is a well-established rule for the construction of statutes that they should be so interpreted as to give them a prospective operation only, unless it is manifest that they were intended to operate retrospectively, and no reason is perceived why the same rule of construction should not apply to the legislative acts of a private corporation. If it assumes to amend its constitution or by-laws, and the amendment is in such form that, if given a retrospective effect, it will alter obligations which the company has assumed by existing contracts, it should
The views which we have expressed are in accordance with the conclusion heretofore reached by several other courts, including the trial court, with respect to the same or kindred questions. Hale v. Union, 168 Pa. St. 377, 31 Atl. 1066; Wist v. Grand Lodge, 22 Or. 271, 29 Pac. 610; Weiler v. Union, 92 Hun, 277, 36 N. Y. Supp. 734; Grand Lodge v. Sater, 44 Mo. App. 445, 452, 453; Voigt v. Kersten, 164 Ill. 314, 45 N. E. 543; Startling v. Supreme Council, 108 Mich. 140, 66 N. W. 340; Smith v. Supreme Lodge, 83 Mo. App. - (not yet reported), and cases there cited. The judgment below, awarding the plaintiff the full amount of the indemnity promised by the policy, is accordingly affirmed.
Dissenting Opinion
(dissenting). Section 5855 of the Revised Statutes of Missouri of 1889 provides that “in all suits upon policies of insurance on life hereafter issued by any company doing business in this state it shall be no defense that the insured committed suicide unless” a state of facts not claimed to exist in this case conditioned the making of the application for insurance. The parties to this suit have stipulated that the insured, “while insane to such an extent as to be incapable of understanding the nature or consequences of his act, took his own life,” and that, if section 5855 did “not operate against the defendant company as to this action, the defendant company is relieved from the payment of the policy aforesaid by the self-destruction of John P. Jarman,” except to the extent of the repayment of his assessments, which amount to $811.83. Section 5855 prohibited the defense that the insured committed suicide, but it left all other legal and equitable defenses unaffected. Is the defense that the insured, “while insane to such an extent as to be incapable of understanding the nature or consequences of his act, took his own life,” a defense that he committed suicide? If it is, it is prohibited by the statute. If it is not, the statute does not operate upon it, and under the express stipulation of the parties the amount of the plaintiff’s recovery should be limited to $811.83. The statutes of the state of Missouri provide that “words and phrases shall be taken in their plain or ordinary and usual sense, but technical words and phrases, having a peculiar and appropriate meaning in law, shall be understood according to their technical import.” Rev. St. Mo. 1889, § 6570. What is the plain, ordinary, and usual meaning of the words “committed suicide?” Does suicide here include, or does it exclude, the taking by a person of his own life while he is so insane that he is incapable of understanding the nature or consequences of his act? The definition of the word “suicide” in Webster’s Dictionary reads in this way: “Suicide. The act of designedly destroying one’s own life committed by a person of years of discretion and sound mind.” In Worcester’s Dictionary it is thus defined: “Suicide. The slayer or slaying of one’s self; self-murder; a self-murderer.” And the definition in the Century Dictionary is: “Suicide. The act of designedly destroying one’s own life.” The plain, ordinary, and usual sense of a word or phrase