Citations
- 65 F.2d 967
Full opinion text
ALSCHULER, Circuit Judge.
The appeal is from a judgment for $25,-800 upon four policies of insurance aggre- . gating $25,000 issued by appellant April 20, 1926, upon the life of Richard J. McGreevey, Jr., who died November 12, 1929, while the policies were in force. To each poliey there is attached a rider specifying that, in addition to the amount payable under the terms of the poliey, a like amount shall be payable in ease the death of the insured was “the result, directly and independently of all other causes, of bodily injuries sustained through external, violent and accidental means,” provided “ (5) that death shall not have been the result of self-destruction, whether sane or insane, or caused by or contributed to, directly or indirectly, or wholly, or partially, by disease, or by bodily or mental infirmity; * * ” In the policies insured’s father was named as beneficiary, but the right was reserved to the insured, without consent of the beneficiary, to assign the policies.
Insured assigned the policies, on March 16, 1927, to Citizens State Bank of Huntington, Ind., and on May 19,1930, after having collected the original face of the policies, the bank, for a consideration, assigned them to appellee Helen C. Smith, a sister of insured. She brought the action upon the alleged liability under the riders of the policies, and the dominating question is whether there was any substantial evidence tending to show insured’s death was accidental and not suicidal. This involves a consideration of the evidence.
Insured was thirty-four years old at his death and unmarried, and had rooms on the second floor of a residential building, the first floor of which was the office of one of the several quite large local business concerns whereof he was the .active head. He was a partner in the MeGreevey Grocery Company, then in bankruptcy, with liabilities of $290,-000 and assets of $75,000; the managing head of Lime City Wholesale Company, in bankruptcy with liabilities of $144,000 and assets of $10,000; and president of Playtime Equipment Company, which at the time was defendant in about forty lawsuits and was borrowing money on its assigned accounts, and had several cheeks outstanding which would be presented probably on the day following and to meet which there was no money in the bank. The bankruptcy of Playtime Company followed shortly after his death. There were pending against him four indictments in the federal court for conspiracy to violate the bankruptcy laws. He held life policies aggregating over $280,000. Clearly his financial condition was desperate.
One of his two rooms on the second floor