Gordon v. Metropolitan Life Insurance

Digges, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This case involves an appeal from the “Serbonian Bog,” that morass of facts and legal distinctions involved in determining whether a death occurred “solely through violent, external and accidental means,” or was merely accidental in result. The appellant’s husband, Norton Gordon, died after a self-administered and illegal injection of heroin. There was no contention that any mishap occurred during the actual act of injection of the drug.

He had a history of narcotics addiction and the medical examiner, Dr. Breitenecker, indicated that death could have resulted from the heroin alone, either by hypersensitivity to the drug itself or a reaction to impurities frequently found in illicit drugs. He was of the opinion, however, that the more logical explanation for the death was to be found in the combined effect of the heroin with another drug found in the decedent’s system. This latter drug was Doriden, a sedative or pain killer which was found in his blood in a 2.04 milligrams per cent concentration, not a lethal dose, but a higher than normal one. The doctor also pointed out that the heroin was not present in lethal quantities either, although he admitted because of the chemical breakdown ³²² of heroin in the body, he could not determine how large a quantity of heroin was initially taken.

Dr. Breitenecker further noted that narcotics users were aware of the substantial. risk involved in the self-administration of heroin. He could not comment, however, on the degree of knowledge of the risk involved in combining heroin with Doriden. No explanation was offered as to how or why or under what circumstances the decedent was using Doriden, except that there were no apparent bodily injuries which would have justified its use as a pain killer. Construing this evidence in the light most favorable to the appellant, it appears that under either explanation a self-administered dose of heroin was a prime cause of the death in question, acting either by itself or in combination with the Doriden.

The possibility that the decedent may have been unaware of the risk in combining drugs becomes irrelevant when one of the drugs used, heroin, by itself carries with it a well known and substantial risk. After paying normal death benefits of $4,000, the appellee Metropolitan Life Insurance Company refused to honor the double indemnity provision of the insurance contract, 1 asserting that this death was not sustained ³²³ “solely through violent, external and accidental means,” although it was conceded that this death was accidental in result. The trial court agreed with this contention on the basis of Life Insurance Co. v. Plummer, 181 Md. 140 , 28 A. 2d 856 , and further ruled in directing a verdict in favor of the insurance company that where death results from an illegal act such as this, recovery should be denied as a matter of public policy. Appellant urges that we should overrule our previous decision in Plummer , and follow a number of jurisdictions which have declined to make the distinction between accidental means and accidental results.

See Beckham v. Travelers Insurance Company, 424 Pa. 107 , 225 A. 2d 532 (1967), and cases collected in Annot. 52 A.L.R.2d 1083 (1957) and later case service. For an extensive discussion of the entire problem see Linden Motor Freight Co., Inc. v. Travelers Ins. Co., 40 N.J. 511 , 193 A. 2d 217 (1963). This we decline to do.

In Plummer, 181 Md. at 143 , a case which involved an unexpected reaction to a normally administered anesthetic, it was emphatically stated: “We adopt the majority view that a means is not made accidental, within the terms of a policy providing for double indemnity in case of death resulting from bodily injury caused solely by external, violent and accidental means, merely because death results unexpectedly, where the means consists of a voluntary and intentional act occurring in the usual manner.” Home, Etc. Company v. Partain, 205 Md. 60 , 106 A. 2d 79 (1954), involved construction of the same policy ³²⁴ language as that found in Plummer , and we upheld without question the distinction developed in Plummer . In Haynes v. Am. Cas.

Co., 228 Md. 394, 399-400 , 179 A. 2d 900 (1962), we were of the opinion that the particular wording of the insurance contract in that case did not warrant our “attempting a sweeping determination as to whether or not a valid distinction exists between ‘accidental means’ and ‘accidental result’ in all cases.” See also Harleysville v. Harris & Brooks, 248 Md. 148 , 235 A. 2d 556 (1967). This case on its facts does not warrant such a sweeping determination either. When a man injects himself with a dangerous drug and no mishap occurs in the injection, though an unexpected result occurs, there is no reason to obliterate the distinction between means and results to insure that he can recover a double indemnity benefit. Perhaps in some cases there is no way to distinguish, but here with an intentional illegal act involving serious foreseeable risk, we are presented with cumulating evidence that this is not the type