COMPANY WINS CASE

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 191, 11 May 1938, Page 11

COMPANY WINS CASE

Suicide For Insurance Money

London; May 9.

In dismissing the appeal of Mrs. de la Boer Beresford against the judgment of the Appeal Court in the Rowlandson' insurance case, tlie House of Lords held that, although the insurance company agreed to pay on life policies for £50,000 after the expiration of a year, even if it wiis assured that an insured person committed suicide while of sound mind, such a contract. was not enforceable owing to the recognised principle that a man cannot have recourse to the law to claim benefit from a crime.

On March 23 last year the Appeal Court allowed the appeal of the Royal Insurance Company against judgment ior £42,469 in favour of Mrs. Beresford. She was proceeding on behalf of creditors of Major Charles Rowlandson, who shot himself in a taxi shortly before the expiry of a period of grace granted him by the insurance company to lind a premium of £454 due on August 3, 1934. The court held Hint Rowlandson deliberately committed suicide in order to allow his estate to collect the insurance. Mrs. Beresford made a cross-petition against a former jury finding that Rowlandson was sane at tlie time of the suicide, and this was dismissed, leave to appeal to the House of Lords being gran ten.