75 Iowa 346 | Iowa | 1888
— I. It appears from the averments of the petition that on the fifth day of December, 1885, the defendant issued to Francis O. Scarth a policy of insurance upon his life, or a beneficiary certificate, in the amount of three thousand dollars, and that until the twenty-eighth of February, 1886, he complied with all the conditions and agreements contained in said contract of insurance, when he died ; and that the plaintiffs are the beneficiaries named in said policy. The manner of the death of the insured is stated in the petition in these words : “That on the twenty-eighth day of February, A.. D., 1886, said Francis O. Scarth departed this life, he having committed suicide by
There has been much discussion in adjudged cases as to the effect of conditions in life insurance policies, which provide that the policy shall be void if the assured comes to his death by his own hand. At one time policies provided, generally, that they should be void in case of death by “suicide,” or by “one’s own hand,” without more. It was held that these terms were synonymous, and conveyed the same idea. It has been held quite generally by the courts of this country that this general condition in a policy referred to an act of criminal self-destruction, and did not apply to an insane person who took his own life. Life Association v. Waller, 57 Ga. 533 ; Hathaway v. Ins. Co., 48 Vt. 335 ; Ins. Co. v. Graves, 6 Bush, 268; Newton v. Ins. Co., 76 N. Y. 426; Scheffer v. Ins. Co., 25 Minn. 534; Ins. Co. v. Terry, 15 Wall. 580; Ins. Co. v. Rodel, 95 U. S. 232; Ins. Co. v. Isett, 74 Pa. St. 176 ; Ins, Co. v. Moore, 34 Mich. 41; Eastabrook v. Ins. Co., 54 Me. 224. This being practically the settled law applicable to these conditions, insurance companies adopted a more specific condition as to liability in cases of death by suicide, and there are a number of cases where the language of the