Life Insurance v. Terry’s Empirical Analysis
82 U.S. 580 · 1872
Citation profile
31 federal appellate · 7 district · 46 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 124 later decisions (14 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2018 · most notably Ritter v. Mutual Life Ins Co of New York (1898), Ruvolo v. American Casualty Co. (1963)
31 federal appellate · 7 district · 46 state decisions — followed in 20 states
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on Deitsch v. Wiggins · Freeman v. People · State v. Felter
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 124 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““If the assured, being in the ordinary possession of his reasoning faculties, from anger, pride, jealousy, or desire to escape from the ills of life, intentionally takes his own life, the proviso attaches, and there can be no recovery. If the death Is caused by the voluntary act of the assured, he knowing and intending that death shall be the result of his act, but when his reasoning faculties are so far impaired that he is not able to understand the moral character, the general nature, consequences, and effect of the act he is about to commit, or when he is impelled thereto by an insane impulse, which he has not the power to resist, such death is not within the contemplation of the parties to the contract, and the insurer is liable.””
8 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““ It devolves on the plaintiff to prove such insanity on the part of the decedent,!'existing at the time he took the poison, as will relieve the act of taking his own life from the effect Avhich, by the general terms used in the policy, self-destruction was to have, namely, to avoid the policy. It is not every kind or degree of insanity which will so far excuse the party taking his own life as to make the company insuring liable. To do this, the act of self-destruction must have been the consequence of the insanity, and the mind of the decedent must have been so far deranged as to have made him incapable of using a rational judgment in regard to the act which he was committing. If he was impelled to the act by an insáne impulse, which the reason that was left him did not enable him to resist, or if his reasoning powers were so far overthrown by his mental condition that he could not exercise his reasoning faculties on the act he was about to do, the company is liable. On the other hand, there is no presumption of law, prima faeie or otherwise, that self-destruction arises from insanity, and if you believe from the evidence that the decedent, although excited, or angry, or distressed in mind, formed the de termination to take his own life, because, in the exercise of his usual reasoning faculties, he preferred death to life, then the company is not liable, because he died by his own hand within the meaning of'the policy.” 15 Wall. 582 ,”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“that if Israel Ferguson died by suicide, the plaintiff cannot recover, unless he has proved to your satisfaction that such act of self-destruction was'not Ferguson’s voluntary and wilful act; that he had not at the time sufficient' power of mind and reason to understand the physical nature and consequences of such act, and ^ not have, at the time, a purpose and intention .to-nause his own death by the act;”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.