173 A. 644 | Pa. | 1934
Argued April 11, 1934. The question here is whether or not in an action on an insurance policy, the so-called "presumption against suicide" can take the place of evidence of accidental death in sustaining an averment of death "effected solely through external, violent and accidental means."
On June 3, 1924, Norman C. Watkins obtained a policy of insurance from the appellant company in which the latter agreed to pay the insured's wife, Elizabeth M. Watkins, the sum of $20,000 upon receipt of due proof of the death of the insured during the continuance of the policy. It also agreed to pay the beneficiary "the further sum of $20,000 upon receipt of due proof that such death of the insured occurred during the continuance of said policy while there was no default in the payment of premium, as a result, directly and independently of all other causes, of bodily injuries, effected solely through external, violent and accidental means, of which, except in the case of drowning or of internal injuries revealed by an autopsy, there is a visible contusion or wound on the *499 exterior of the body, and that such death occurred within sixty days of the accident, provided, however, that no accidental death benefit shall be payable if such death resulted from suicide — whether sane or insane; from having engaged in aviation or submarine operations. . . . . . ." On March 19, 1928, Watkins obtained another policy from the same company providing for the payment of sixty monthly installments of $200 each, upon the happening of the same contingencies as those specified in the first policy.
Plaintiff's statement sets forth that on April 16, 1931, "the insured, while engaged in his own pursuits in his garage, without intention on his part, but accidentally, inhaled carbon monoxide gas, as a result of which, directly and independently of all other causes, he died" on the same day. Defendant contested the suit on the ground that the inhalation was not accidental but intentional. The plaintiff claimed $20,000, being the amount of the accidental death benefit under the first policy, and also three installments of $200 each due in April, May and June, 1931, under the second policy, making a total claim of $20,600 with interest. The case was tried before a jury and a verdict was returned for the plaintiff in the sum of $22,582.85. Defendant asked for a new trial. Upon refusal, this appeal followed.
The first assignment of error is that the court charged the jury as follows: "Where it is shown, as it is here, that death resulted from external and violent means, there is a presumption that it was accidental and that it was not intentional." The second assignment of error is that the court charged the jury as follows: "Therefore, the plaintiff's case goes to you necessarily, upon the showing that the death of Mr. Watkins was by external and violent means, and the necessary element of accidental death is, prima facie, supplied by the presumption against suicide." The third assignment of error is based upon an excerpt from the court's charge to the same effect as the foregoing. The fourth assignment of *500 error was the affirmation of plaintiff's first point, reading as follows: "Norman C. Watkins having died a violent death, viz.: by carbon monoxide poisoning, the law presumes that his death was not by suicide but was accidental." The fifth assignment of error was the affirmation of plaintiff's second point, reading as follows: "This presumption has the same probative force and effect as direct evidence of accidental death." The sixth assignment of error was the affirmation of plaintiff's sixth point, reading as follows: "Unless the jury find that the evidence of the defendant outweighs the presumption that Norman C. Watkins did not commit suicide, the verdict must be for the plaintiff." The eighth assignment of error was the refusal of defendant's fourth point, reading as follows: "There is no presumption in this case that Norman C. Watkins died an accidental death."
The court erred in giving to the so-called "presumption against suicide" the weight of a probative fact, thereby casting upon the defendant the burden of proving that the insured's death was something other than the kind of death insured against. Considerable confusion appears in judicial opinions as to the nature of presumptions and their function in the administration of justice. They are not evidence and should not be substituted for evidence. Presumptions are generally grouped into two major classes: (1) of law; and (2) of fact. The former usually have the force of legal maxims and become rules of law, with definite procedural consequences. As Mr. Justice AGNEW said in Tanner v. Hughes and Kincaid,
It is obvious that what are originally mere inferences may in time become presumptions of law. If, for example, "in the beginning," 100 human beings had been created, and sometime later 51% or more had died, there would then have arisen an inference that all men are mortal. Later in the course of time, with additional data all supporting the same inference, it would become a presumption of law that all men are mortal. Judge BALDWIN of the Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut has admirably characterized the nature of presumption as follows, in Ward v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., 33 A. 902, 904: "The term 'presumption' is used to signify that which may be assumed without proof, or taken for granted. . . . . . . It is asserted as a self-evident result of human reason and experience. In its origin, every presumption is one of fact, and not of law. It may, in course of time, become a presumption of law, and even an indisputable one. Its truth may be so universally accepted as to elevate it to the position of a maxim of jurisprudence. Its convenience, as a rule of decision, may be so generally recognized as to place it in the rank of legal fictions. But, so long as it retains its original character as a presumption of fact, it has simply the *503 force of an argument: 1 Greenleaf, Evidence, section 44; Steph. Dig. Evidence 246."
"Presumptions of fact are at best but mere arguments, and are to be judged by the common and received tests of the truth of propositions and the validity of arguments": Lawhorn v. Carter, 11 Bush. 7. Professor Thayer in his Storrs Lectures, 1896, before the Law School of Yale University, said: "By a loose habit of speech, the presumption is occasionally said to be, itself, evidence, and juries are told to put it on the scale and weigh it. . . . . . . A presumption itself contributes no evidence, and has no probative quality. It is sometimes said that the presumption will tip the scale when the evidence is balanced. But, in truth, nothing tips the scale but evidence, and a presumption — being a legal rule or a legal conclusion — is not evidence. It may represent and spring from certain evidential facts; and these facts may be put in the scale. But that is not putting in the presumption itself. A presumption may be called 'an instrument of proof,' in the sense that it determines from whom evidence shall come, and it may be called something 'in the nature of evidence,' for the same reason; or it may be called a substitute for evidence, and even 'evidence' — in the sense that it counts at the outset, for evidence enough to make a prima facie case. But the moment these conceptions give way to the perfectly distinct notion of evidence proper — i. e., probative matter, which may be a basis of inference, something capable of being weighed in the scales of reason and compared and estimated with other matter of the probative sort — so that we get to treating the presumption of innocence or any other presumption, as being evidence in this its true sense, then we have wandered into the region of shadows and phantoms."
As they deliberated on this case the jurors had the right to bear in mind the fact that to the average human being, life is more attractive than death. They were thus entitled to consider, on an even balance of the evidence *504 as between accidental death and suicide, the probabilities against suicide; but the court below erred in its interpretation and application of the so-called "presumption against suicide." The court gave to the ordinary probability that a human being will not commit suicide the force of a fact in evidence shifting the burden of proof to the defendant. The court charged the jury (as above noted): "The necessary element of accidental death is, prima facie, supplied by the presumption against suicide." "Norman C. Watkins having died a violent death, viz., by carbon monoxide poisoning, the law presumes that his death was not by suicide but was accidental." These instructions made the fact of accidental death such a to-be-expected concomitant of a violent death by carbonmonoxide poisoning as to render it unnecessary for the plaintiff, after prima facie proving the latter, to offer further testimony in support of the cause of action sued upon.
It is true that there is a reasonable inference against death being self-inflicted, but this inference does not have a sufficiently broad factual base to warrant its projection to the height of a presumption of law. Presumptions are not fact suppliers; they are guide-posts indicating whence proof must come; for example, in criminal cases, the presumption of innocence mantling an accused is a challenge of proof, to the asserter of guilt. Sometimes the party who has the burden of persuading the jury does not have all through the case the burden of coming forward with affirmative evidence; as for example, in a criminal case if insanity is pleaded, the burden of proving it is on the defendant, who presumably is sane.
Presumptions arise as follows: They are either (1) a procedural expedient, or (2) a rule of proof production based upon the comparative availability of material evidence to the respective parties, or (3) a conclusion firmly based upon the generally known results of wide human experience, or (4) a combination of (1) and (3). *505
The presumption as to the survivorship of husband and wife meeting death in a common disaster is a procedural expedient. It is not based upon extensive data arising from human experience. An unexplained absence for seven years raises the presumption of the death of the absentee upon the expiration of the last day of the period. This also is a procedural expedient — an arbitrary but necessary rule for the solution of problems arising from unexplained absences of human beings. An example of (2) is the rule requiring persons on trial for doing certain acts which are illegal if done without a license to produce evidence that they belong to the class privileged by license. See Com. v. Wenzel,
The so-called "presumption against suicide" is neither a procedural expedient (1) nor a rule rooted in the consideration that one of the litigants has possession of the most available evidence determinative of the issue trying (2), nor is it a conclusion based on the known results of wide human experience (3). It is merely a permissible consideration of the nonprobability of death by suicide.
In judicial trials, as in the other affairs of life, probabilities are always being weighed by those who have to *506 decide questions of fact, but probabilities are not legal presumptions. That a witness who has an interest in the outcome of a lawsuit will "color his testimony" accordingly, is a probability which jurors have a right to consider, but it is not a presumption. Any fabrication of testimony gives rise to a permissible inference by the jury of the lack of credibility of the entire testimony of the fabricator, but this legitimate inference does not amount to a legal presumption that his entire testimony is false. In the instant case the general probability against suicide did not shift the burden of producing evidence upon the party against whom it operated. Here the burden of proving that the death of the insured was caused through "external, violent and accidental means" was squarely placed on the plaintiff. Under the contract of insurance she, in order to make out a cause of action against the defendant for the amount claimed, had to incorporate in her statement these averments. For a commensurate recovery her proof had to sustain them. What the trial judge aptly called "the necessary element of accidental death" was not (as he said it was) "supplied by the presumption against suicide." No presumptions ever take the place of proof. The so-called "presumption against suicide" is merely an inference or argument; it is not what Justice AGNEW, in the opinion above cited, properly designates as a "legal presumption binding on the jury, prima facie, till disproved."
Accidental death, as opposed to self-inflicted death, is no more to be legally presumed than suicide is to be presumed as against homicide. There are thousands of homicides annually, still more suicides and the number of the latter is surpassed by the number of fatal accidents.* Yet it might easily happen in some years that the ratios would be reversed. Chief Justice GIBSON said *507 in Burr v. Sim, 4 Wharton 149, 171, that perils of the sea are not to be presumed. "They are such as may or may not occur." He said further: "A natural presumption arises only from a violent probability, because it is a conclusion drawn by experience from the usual current of things; but no violent probability of death arises from a peril, which, though possible, is remote." When the issue is death by accident against death by suicide, the data as to the respective total number of deaths from these two causes is not in the average mind so decisively balanced against the probability of death by suicide as to "harden" the inference against death by suicide into a presumption of law which shifts the burden of proof to the defendant in a suit on an insurance policy against death as a result "of bodily injuries, effected solely through external, violent and accidental means."
An examination of many cases concerning presumptions, particularly "presumptions against suicide," reveals what has been aptly characterized as "a welter of loose language and discordant decisions concerning presumptions." The confusion of thought and expression in the understanding and application of this so-called "presumption against suicide" has arisen from three main causes: (1) the treating of an ordinary permissible deduction as a compellable assumption, i. e., as a presumption, putting on the person on whom it operates the burden of coming forward with opposing evidence, or suffering the penalty of having the so-called presumption accepted as verity; (2) the treating of this permissible deduction as evidence; and (3) the failure to distinguish between suits on insurance policies like the one here sued on, which insure against death as a result "of bodily injuries effected solely through external, violent and accidental means" and suits on those policies which insure against death but which contain a proviso avoiding the policy if the insured dies by his own act. As to (1), this we have already discussed. As to (2), "It is a fallacy to attribute (as do some judges) an *508
artificial probative force to a presumption, increasing for the jury the weight of the facts, even when the opponent has come forward with some evidence to the contrary": Wigmore on Evidence, 2d edition, volume 5, section 2491. ". . . . . . No presumption can be evidence; it is a rule about the duty of producing evidence": Ibid., section 2511. Presumptions are always independent of evidence. Chief Justice SHAW in Webster's Case, 5 Cushing 295, 320, was careful to note this in his charge. There he said: "All the presumptions of law independent of evidence are in favor of innocence." In Agnew v. United States,
An instruction that jurors trying the issue presented here, in balancing the evidence for and against the conflicting theories of accidental death and suicide, may keep in mind the general probability against suicide — a probability arising from "the usual current of things" — is proper. But, to charge the jury that after plaintiff proved the insured's death through external and violent means, the balance of the proof required to maintain the cause of action, that is, "the necessary element of accidental death is, prima facie, supplied by the presumption against suicide," is erroneous. Reason leads to this conclusion and authority supports it.
In Grosvenor v. Fidelity C. Co.,
In Keefer v. Pacific Mut. Life Ins. Co.,
In Merrett v. Preferred Masonic Mut. Acc. Assn. of America (Supreme Court of Michigan), 57 N.W. 169, it was held: "Until there was some evidence tending to show that death resulted from accident, rather than design, or from natural causes, such as apoplexy or heart failure, there was nothing to go to a jury. There was not a prima facie case of accidental death. The burden of proving accidental death is upon a plaintiff."
In Whitlatch v. Fidelity Casualty Co. of New York (Court of Appeals),
In Trust Co. v. Siefke,
In Johns v. Northwestern Mutual Relief Assn.,
In the case of Hill v. Central Accident Ins. Co.,
The conclusions that the foregoing lead to are these:
1. The operative facts of the insurance policy sued upon were "external, violent and accidental means" *512 causing the insured's death, and any evidence, whether direct or circumstantial, that tends to prove the operative facts, is admissible.
2. If there are in evidence credited facts or circumstances or both from which the jury may infer legitimately that the insured's death resulted from accidental means, plaintiff is entitled to recover. As to the test of submissibility of evidence to a jury, see Brown v. Schock,
3. On plaintiff rests the burden of proving all the operative facts by a fair preponderance of the evidence. An even balancing of the evidence on the issue of death by accidental means or death by suicide denotes that plaintiff fails to sustain her burden of proof and the verdict should be for the defendant.
Causes of action are always set forth affirmatively and if they are to prevail they must be supported either (1) by facts tending to prove directly the cause of action pleaded or (2) by legitimate inferences from circumstances which have met the tests of admissibility. Mere guesses and conjectures cannot be substituted for legal proof.
In the deliberations of the jury there are permissible inferences (sometimes miscalled "presumptions") rooted in general human experience and which have weight when the evidence, respectively, for and against a fact in issue leaves the jury in a "twilight zone" of doubt as to that fact. Such "presumptions may be looked upon as legally recognized phantoms of logic, flitting in the twilight, but disappearing in the sunshine of actual facts":* Mackowik v. Kansas City, St. J. C. B. R. Co. (Supreme Court of Missouri), 94 S.W. 256.
Here plaintiff pleaded as her cause of action that the insured "without intention on his part, but accidentally, *513 inhaled carbon monoxide gas, as a result of which he died." She proved that the death was caused by external and violent means, and the trial judge then said that this much being proved, "the law presumes that his [the insured's] death was not by suicide but was accidental" and that "this presumption has the same probative force and effect as direct evidence of accidental death." This was error, for, as already pointed out by us, plaintiff's invoking of a mere "presumption against suicide" (a presumption unsupported by relevant evidence) cannot serve, on the pivotal issue, as an adequate substitute for the proof the well-pleaded cause of action requires.
The assignments of error heretofore specified are sustained. The judgment is reversed with a venire.
Mr. Justice LINN concurred in the result.