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Solorzano v. Bristow9/16/2004
urance policies include clauses which specify that if a death is the result of a suicide, the insurer is not liable for the face amount of the policy. Estate of Galloway v. Guar. Income Life Ins. Co., 104 N.M. 627, 627, 725 P.2d 827, 827 (1986). At issue in Estate of Galloway was a life insurance policy that excluded liability " f the insured commits suicide, while sane or insane." Id. Affirming summary judgment in favor of the insurer, the Court noted the history behind this verbiage.
Many early cases have held that self-destruction while insane was not suicide within a suicide exclusion clause since it was deemed that there could be no suicide unless the person committing the self-destructive act could form a conscious intention to kill himself and carry out that act, realizing its moral and physical consequences. As a reaction to these holdings, insurers began to add to suicide exclusion clauses the phrase "sane or insane."
Id. at 628, 725 P.2d at 828. The workers' compensation cases demonstrate that intent is taken into account in distinguishing between accident and suicide, while the insurance policy cases reveal that insurers have sought to remove knowing intent from the concept of suicide.
The case before us, of course, is not a workers' compensation claim and does not involve an insurance policy definition. These opinions do, however, indicate that absent contractual provisions to the contrary, the deceased person's state of mind is relevant in deciding whether a death is properly classified as a suicide. Other authorities confirm this view. For example, dictionary definitions require intention on the part of the actor, and awareness of the likely consequences of one's voluntary acts. Black's Law Dictionary defines suicide as " elf-destruction; the deliberate termination of one's own life." Black's Law Dictionary 1434 (6th ed. 1990). Webster's Dictionary elaborates on the definition of suicide: "the deliberate and intentional destruction of his own life by a person of years of discretion and of sound mind." Webster's Unabridged International Dictionary 2286 (3rd ed. 1993).
Similarly, Corpus Juris Secundum defines suicide in its "legal sense" to mean "self-destruction by a sane person, and the voluntary and intentional taking of one's own life by . . . a person of sound mind." 83 C.J.S. Suicide § 2, at 718-19 (2000) (footnotes omitted). The American Jurisprudence encyclopedia defines suicide as the "voluntary and intentional taking of one's own life by a sane person." 40A Am. Jur. 2d Homicide § 619 (1999).
The definitions in these secondary authorities comport with cases which have dealt with the issue. Wallin v. Ins. Co. of N. Am., 596 S.W.2d 716, 718 (Ark. Ct. App. 1980) (reversing a jury verdict in favor of an insurer because of the admission of improper evidence and noting that " uicide is the intentional taking of one's own life"); Ray v. Federated Guar. Life Ins. Co., 381 So. 2d 847, 848 (La. Ct. App. 1980) (holding that death caused by drowning in a bathtub was "accidental" within the meaning of a policy because the deceased was insane at the time of his death and did not "foresee the consequences of his actions"). In turn, these cases reflect the common law rule that to constitute suicide, "a person who takes his own life `must be of years of discretion, and in his senses.'" Wackwitz v. Roy, 418 S.E.2d 861, 864-65 (Va. 1992) (quoting 5 William Blackstone, Commentaries *189); see also State v. Willis, 121 S.E.2d 854, 857 (N.C. 1961) (holding that an "insane person" cannot commit the common law crime of attempted suicide); Bisenius v. Karns, 165 N.W.2d 377, 382 (Wis. 1969) (defining suicide as the "voluntary and intentional taking of one'
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