c1zAN1>AL c. Aoornsur INS. co. 41*
policy of insurance, by which it promised to pay to the plaintiff, who
was the wife of the` insured, the sum of $10,000, within 30 days
after suflicient proof that the insured, at any time within the con-
tinuance of the policy, had sustained bodily injuries, effected through
external, accidental, and violent means, within the intent and mean-
ing of the contract, and the conditions thereunto annexed, and such
injuries alone had occasioned death within 90 days from the happen-V
ing thereof. It was provided in the policy that the insurance should
not extend to death or disability "which may have been caused wholly
or in part by bodily innrmities or disease." Further, that no claim _
should be made under the policy if the death or injury should be
caused by suicide or self-inflicted injuries. Y
While this policy was in force, the insured, Edward M. Crandal,
took his own life by hanging, and the jury to whom the case was sub-
mitted for a special verdict on the facts, has found that at the time?
of the act of self-destruction he was insanu. The question reserved
for consideration by the court, and now to be determined, is whether
the death was one covered by the policy. The question of liability,`
as it here arises, upon an accident policy of insurance, seems to be
one of Hrst impression. Unaided by direct authority, the 'court is ‘
called on to determine, _/irct, whether, under such a policy as this;
death from self-destruction, occurring when the insured is insane,
may be said to have been caused by bodily injuries effected through. `
accidental means. This question, it will be understood, is here to be
considered quite independently of the question whether disease or
physical infirmity was a promoting cause of death.
The verdict of the jury was unquestionably right. The case was
one in which the evidence clearly established the fact of insanity.
The symptoms of a disordered mind were manifested in the countep
nance, conduct, and conversation of the insured. He was sleepless,
was sometimes unduly excited, then unnaturally depressed. He sufs
fered to such an extent from melancholy that he abandoned his ac-
customed habits and pursuits. Fondness for family and friends
changed to indifference; and, in short, his reasoning powers and
self-control appear to have been prostrated by the fear of want and
by morbid impulses and delusions, such as, in this species of insan-
ity, impel to self-destruction. Upon the facts shown, the jury might
well find that his judgment, his volition, his will, were overthrown, so
that, in the language of Mr. Justice Nsnsou, when chief justice of
New York, in the case of Brcasted v. Farmers’ Loan ré Trust C0., 4;
Hill, 73, 75, the act of suicide "was no more his act, in the sense of
the law, than if he had been impelled by irresistible physical power."
Upon the verdict and the facts which sustain it, it may then be
assumed that when the deceased took his life it was not his volun-
tary, rational act. He could not exercise his natural powers of voli-
tion, and thereby control his judgment upon the act he was about to
commit. The physical violence, therefore, which terminated his life