Gohlinghorst v. Metropolitan Life Insurance

¹⁵⁹ Johnson, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The single question presented by this appeal is whether the trial court correctly instructed the jury that the evidence was legally insufficient to show that the death of Mary A. Packham was caused by bodily injuries sustained solely through external, violent, and accidental means, resulting directly and independently of all other causes. Mrs. Packham, the decedent, was insured by appellee under two identical policies, save for the amounts payable in event of her death, in each of which appellant, her stepdaughter, was the beneficiary. The policies contained provisions that if the insured, after attaining the age of fifteen and before attaining seventy, sustained during the life of the policies “bodily injuries solely through external, violent and accidental means, resulting directly and independently of all other causes in the death of the insured within ninety days from the date of such bodily injuries,” while the policies were in force and premiums not in default beyond the grace period specified therein, appellee would pay, in addition to the face amount of the policies, an accidental death benefit equal thereto, unless such bodily injuries were sustained by the insured in certain excepted employments and occupations.

It was further provided that “no accidental death benefit will be paid if the death of the insured is the result of self-destruction, whether sane or insane, nor if death is caused or contributed to, directly or indirectly, or wholly or partially, by disease, or by bodily or mental infirmity, nor if death results from bodily injuries sustained while participating in aviation or aeronautics, or while the insured is in military or naval service in time of war.” At the time of her death, on May 22nd, 1938, Mrs. Packham was fifty-five years of age, and it is admitted that premiums upon the policies were not in arrears, further that appellee has paid unto appellant the face amount of the policies, refusing, however, to pay accidental death benefits. The decedent, her husband, who ¹⁶⁰ departed this life prior to the trial in this case, her stepdaughter, Jennie May Gohlinghorst, and the husband of the latter, lived in the same building, the Packhams in an apartment upon the second floor, and the Gohlinghorsts in a first-floor apartment. . Mr. and Mrs. Packham slept in the same bedroom, but in separate beds. On the evening of May 21st, 1938, when last seen by Mrs. Mohlinghorst, the insured was eating ice cream upon the premises of the stepdaughter, and was apparently in good health.

Shortly thereafter she retired to her bedroom upon the upper floor, undressed, and retired. On the following morning, which was Sunday, the stepdaughter awoke about eight o’clock, and, approximately three hours later, called up the steps to the parents, but received no reply from either of them, except that her father coughed, which was a usual thing for him to do when any one had called. She went upstairs, raised the blinds and discovered decedent on the mattress, lying upon her stomach without any pillow. Her head was wedged between the mattress and a horizontal iron bar that connected the head posts of the bed, the bar being four or five inches above the mattress, which was soft and rested upon a new coil spring.

Assured was dead ahd her flesh was “the color of an egg plant.” Immediately Doctor Tonry was summoned, and, upon his arrival, Mrs. Packham’s body was with some difficulty extricated from the position in which it was found “well wedged” "beneath the bar. The physician considered it a coroner’s case, and notified Doctor John A. Evans, the coroner of that district, who arrived upon the premises at 12:30 or 1:00 on the same day. After observing Mrs. Packham’s body and conversing with those present, he gave a certificate, the effect of which was that strangulation was the immediate cause of death, but this was induced by an epileptic seizure. Doctor Evans, who, also testified at the trial, stated that her face was blue when he arrived and death was due to strangulation, but, upon being told by .some of those present that decedent was subject to epilepsy, he concluded she ¹⁶¹ had suffered an epileptic seizure, and in that state forced her head beneath the cross-bar, causing strangulation.

Doctor Tonry testified that to determine the exact cause of death would require an autopsy, but strangulation would cause the discoloration of Mrs. Packham and he believed did cause it; that he recalled having treated her on May 5th or 12th for a cut on the wrist, and her telling him she had had an epileptic fit and cut her arm. He further stated that when he arrived Mrs. Packham had been dead “two or three hours, it may have been longer,” because rigor mortis had set in. It is conceded in briefs and oral argument that Mrs. Packham’s death was in fact caused by strangulation. Additional testimony of Mrs. Gohlinghorst was that she did not see her stepmother after she had retired on Saturday evening until she found her dead Sunday morning, but that the stepmother had lived with her four and one-half years and her epileptic attacks were four months apart, her last attack having occurred around the middle of May, at which time she was treated for a cut; that when she had an epileptic fit “her eyes got glossy and she would make a terrible noise; you could hear her all over and she foamed at the mouth”; that at times, when the windows were up, she could be heard by the neighbors next door, but the witness heard no noise on the night of May 21st, or on the following morning, when she found her dead.

The aforegoing is a summary of the testimony before the trial court, and it will be observed that there is no direct testimony that at the time