151 N.Y.S. 60 | N.Y. App. Div. | 1914
The complaint sets forth that the defendant Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States, on the application of Sidney I. Salvin, and in consideration of the payment to it by him of the sum of $78.83, and of a like annual payment thereafter, assured the life of the said Salvin for the sum of $1,500 for a term of twenty years from the date of said policy, Jan. uary 15, 1902, and promised to pay the said sum on the death of the said Sidney “ to the person therein described as Bertha, the wife of the insured, to wit, the wife of the said Sidney I. Salvin, or in the event of her prior death, to the executors, administrators or assigns of the said Sidney I. Salvin; ” that at the time of the issuance of the said policy Bertha Salvin was the wife of the said Sidney I. Salvin, but was not such at the time of his decease, having on February 21, 1913, obtained a decree of divorce from him in the New York Supreme Court;
The plaintiff’s action is based upon the theory that the designation of the beneficiary as “ Bertha, the wife of the insured,” imports an implied condition that such beneficiary, to receive the proceeds of the policy, should continue to be his wife up to the time of his death, and that her prior divorce, even though granted in her favor and at her instigation, terminated her interest in the policy. We think this claim is -untenable. The words “wife of the insured” were purely descriptive, and could not affect the rights of the beneficiary named therein, who was Bertha Salvin. Overhiser v. Overhiser (63 Ohio St. 77) expressly held that where a married woman is named as beneficiary in an insurance policy on her husband’s life, she is entitled to the proceeds notwithstanding a divorce obtained by her before his death. In that case a policy on the life of George P. Overhiser was payable to Lena Overhiser, “ wife of George P. Overhiser, of Montrose, in the County of Montrose, State of Colorado, if living, if not living, to his executors, administrators or assigns.” At the time of the issuance of the policy Lena Overhiser was the wife of George P. Overhiser, hut thereafter, and before the death of the insured, she had voluntarily instituted a suit for absolute divorce against him and had succeeded therein, and was divorced from him a year before his death. The court said (p. 82): “Lena Overhiser was named in the policy as beneficiary and the words c wife of George P. Overhiser ’ were descriptive only. The policy defines in express terms the only condition upon which it would be
There can be no doubt that the divorce obtained by Bertha Salvin did not and could not defeat her rights as beneficiary under the policy of insurance in her favor then subsisting. (Olmsted v. Keyes, 85 N. Y. 593; Connecticut Mutual Life Ins. Co. v. Schaefer, 94 U. S. 457.)
Ingraham, P. J., McLaughlin, Laughlin and Hotchkiss, JJ., concurred.
Order reversed, with ten dollars costs and disbursements, and motion for judgment for defendant on the pleadings granted, with ten dollars costs.