45 Ind. App. 30 | Ind. Ct. App. | 1909
This action was instituted in the lower court by the appellant, as the widow and duly designated beneficiary of Joseph B. Kunse, deceased, to recover $500, the amount of the benefit certificate issued by the appellee upon the life of said decedent. Said association agreed to pay to the duly designated beneficiary one assessment upon its membership not exceeding $500, $1,000, $1,500 or $2,000 as he may elect in his application for membership. The appellee enacted by-laws, among’ them being the following, which was in force at the time the insured became a member and continued to be at the time of his death.
“Section 78. No benefits shall be paid on account of the death or disability of a member while engaged in a mob, riot or insurrection, * * * or when death was the result of suicide within five years after admission to life benefit membership, or when the death of such a member was intentionally caused by the beneficiary or beneficiaries of such member, and in all cases where death results from suicide within five years after admission to life benefit membership, whether member was sane or insane at the time of death, the beneficiary or beneficiaries of the member shall only be paid the amount of money which the member has paid into the life benefit fund, which amount shall be the full amount which shall be claimed in any such case; provided that no benefit certificate of any member shall be invalid where the member has been adjudged insane, prior to his death, by any court of competent jurisdiction.”
The complaint was in one paragraph, based upon a benefit certificate issued by the appellee to said decedent, to which complaint the appellee filed 'its answer in two paragraphs. The first was a general denial, and the second averred that said appellee was a corporation duly organized under the laws of the State of Michigan, and sought to avoid liability under said benefit certificate by setting out section seventy-eight of the by-laws of the said company, before quoted; that said decedent came to his death by suicide, in violation of said by-laws; that said beneficiary reported the death of said decedent to appellee, which showed that Joseph B. Kunse came to his death from suicide by hanging, within one j'-ear after becoming a member of said association; that said decedent had contributed, during his membership, the sum of $8.75, for which sum appellee had theretofore forwarded a draft to Margaret J. Kunse, widow, in payment of said dues, which draft she had received and returned to appellee.
To this second paragraph of answer the appellant addressed a demurrer for want of facts, which was overruled and exceptions taken. Appellant replied to said second paragraph of answer in two paragraphs. The first admitted that the assured, Joseph B. Kunse, came to his death by hanging himself, but averred that he was forced to do so by an “irresistible, insane impulse,” and that the act was “wholly involuntary, unintentional and accidental;” that he was “wholly insane and totally incapable of forming an intention to take his own life,” and that his death was the immediate result
To each of these paragraphs of reply the appellee filed a demurrer for want of facts, which demurrers were sustained and exceptions saved, whereupon appellant refused to plead further and judgment was rendered upon said demurrers.
The errors relied upon for reversal are: (1) The overruling of appellant’s demurrer to appellee’s second paragraph of answer; (2) the sustaining of appellee’s demurrer to each paragraph of appellant’s reply; (3) the sustaining of appellee’s motion for judgment.
We quite agree with the reasoning in the quotation just given; but, it being admitted that the assured died by his own act, and governed as we are by the plain language of ihe contract, we must conclude that the association did not assume the risk of self-destruction.
Judgment affirmed.