Murderers and Beneficiaries
Prof. Bill Long 2/21/05
One of the inevitable complications that life insurance policies bring to human relationships is that sometimes beneficiaries might be tempted to "off" the named insured for the insurance proceeds. It seems like Court TV would be made for cases like this--tearful testimony, whispered accusations, star witnesses, etc. Underneath it all may not be a problem of huge proportions, but it is one that should have at least one mini-essay devoted to it.
The legal question is to what extent a beneficiary may receive the proceeds of an insurance policy when s/he is responsible for the named insured's death. On the one hand, the answer should be quite easy: as the common law says, "no one should be allowed to benefit from his own wrong." But, this isn't specific enough to help us. I think we need to do some more thinking about it.
At Common Law
Under the common law, a person who "feloniously and intentionally" killed another was barred from receiving the proceeds of a life insurance policy on the victim. Invocation of the common law rule requires proof of the beneficiary's intent to kill the victim. But what was interesting about the CL rule is that it didn't require conviction of the crime to bar recovery. As one court said, "What is required, however, is proof in a civil proceeding by a preponderance of the evidence of an intent to cause death (Cheatle v. Cheatle, 662 A2d 1362, 1365 (DC Ct of App 1995))." Thus, the civil standard of liability rather than the criminal standard of guilt is what is required.
Slayer's Statutes
About half of the states have these kind of statutes, which were an attempt to codify the common law but, as you will see, don't quite do that. This means that to the extent that the statutes do not overlap, a court will have to determine if the common law is superseded or still is applicable.
The District of Columbia has a typical slayer's statute. It provides:
"A person convicted of felonious homicide of another person, by way of murder or manslaughter, takes no estate or interest in property of any kind from the other person..."
Some states which do not have these kind of statutes have provisions, usually in their Insurance Codes, like the following, which comes from Texas:
"The interest of a beneficiary in a life insurance policy or contract heretofore or hereafter issued shall be forfeited when the beneficiary is the principal or an accomplice in willfully bringing about the death of the insured. When such is the case, the nearest relative of the insured shall receive said insurance."
Reflecting on the Law
Thus, there are ways that the CL and Slayer's statute overlap and ways that they are seemingly independent of each other. For example, both require a willful and felonious killing or bringing about the death of the person but the CL allows this to be demonstrated in a civil proceeding, while the statute requires a conviction or certain enumerated crimes. Again, while the common law emphasizes the willful or intentional character of the act, the statute, by mentioning manslaughter, leaves open the possibility that a conviction for "involuntary manslaughter," as many states have it, will make a person unable to collect as beneficiary. A definition of involuntary manslaughter is:
"in the circumstances existing at the time, the person's act either was by its nature dangerous to human life or was done with reckless disregard for human life....(and) the person either knew that such conduct was a threat to the lives of others or knew of circumstances that would reasonably cause the person to foresee that such conduct might be a threat to the lives of others."
So, at some points the Slayer's Statute is more encompassing than the common law (on the issue of intent); in other ways it is less inclusive (a conviction is necessary). Do you think that a civil finding of involuntary manslaughter, then, in a jurisdiction where there also is a slayer's statute, would suffice to prohibit a beneficiary from receiving under the insurance policy?
Two Cases
Two cases that present interesting fact patterns are Cheatle v. Cheatle (cited above) and American-Amicable v. King (591 F2d 343). In the former the trial court found that the sister of "Colonel Cheatle," the sole beneficiary under his life insurance policy, neglected, abused and possibly hastened the death of the colonel when she was caring for him after his wife's passing. Her attitude (the court describes her with these words: "selfish, angry, resentful, indignant, bitter, self-centered, spiteful, vindictive, paranoid and stingy" and that her conduct "did shorten the decedent's life") and actions therefore had the result "of benign neglect of Colonel Cheatle, indeed, perhaps very close to if not actual gross neglect." Yet the court didn't find that her actions consisted of willful and intentional hastening of his death, and so she could not be deprived of the insurance proceeds.
In the King case, the beneficiary actually was convicted of murdering her husband, and so there was no trouble with her not getting the proceeds of the policy. But, Ms. King, the step-daughter, was contingent beneficiary and, though there was no finding that she was involved in the murder of the man, she helped Ms. King "clean up the mess," so to speak, after the crime. She was in common law parlance an "accessory after the fact." Could she receive the proceeds of the policy? The court had two hurdles to get over--both the one discussed above as well as one interpreting the language of the policy. The policy provided that the contingent beneficiary took only if the beneficiary herself had died, which was not the case here. Nevertheless, the court held that the contingent beneficiary could receive the proceeds--she did not willfully kill the man, and there was TX precedent for disregarding the specific language of the policy on this point.
Conclusion
Though life insurance policies try to get around the problem of incentive to murder by requiring an insurable interest in the life of the insured (that the beneficiary have an interest in the continuing life of the insured), it is easier to state that in a statute than to insure that it is true in real life.
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