by John Marshall Harlan

“ That letter concluded: 'This is a sad ending of a promising life, but I deserve all the punishment I may get. Only I feel my debts must be paid. This sacrifice will do it, and only this. I was faithful until two years ago. ”

“ Chief Justice Brickell, delivering the unanimous judgment of that court, said:
'In all contracts of insurance there is a implied understanding or agreement that the risks insured against are such as the thing insured, whether it is property or health or life, is usually subject to, and the assured cannot voluntarily and intentionally vary them. ”

“ If one whose life is insured intentionally kills himself when his reasoning faculties are so far impaired by insanity that he is unable to understand the moral character of his act, even if he does understand its physical nature, consequence, and effect, such self-destruction will not of itself prevent recovery upon the policies. ”

“ There can be no recovery by the estate of a dead man of the amount of policies of insurance upon his life, if he takes his own life designedly, while of sound mind.
(2) If the jury found that Runk committed suicide when he was of sound mind, being morally and mentally conscious of the act the was about to commit, of its consequences, and of its nature, with the deliberate intent to secure to his estate and to his creditors the amount of the policies sued upon, there could be no recovery. ”

“ If a person should apply for a policy expressly providing that the company should pay the sum named if or in the event the assured, at any time during the continuance of the contract, committed self-destruction, being at the time of sound mind, it is reasonably certain that the application would be instantly rejected. ”

“ A contract, the tendency of which is to endanger the public interests or injuriously affect the public good, or which is subversive of sound morality, ought never to receive the sanction of court of justice, or be made the foundation of its judgment. ”

“ Woolsey, 4 El. & Bl. 243, 254, in which the question was as to the rights of an assignee under a policy providing that if the assured should die by dueling, or by his own hand or the hand of justice, it should be void as to the personal representative of the assured, Lord Campbell, C. J., said that 'if a man insures his life for a year, and commits suicide within the year, his executors cannot recover on the policy, as the owner of a ship who insures her for a year cannot recover upon the policy if within the year he causes her to be sunk. ”

“ The defendant, by counsel, stated at the time that the paper was not offered for the purpose of making it, as an 'application,' part of the contract, but to prove that an independent, collateral, contemporaneous agreement was entered into, by which Runk stipulated that he would not die by his own act, whether sane or insane, during the period of two years. ”