INSURANCE CASE

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 108, 10 May 1938, Page 12

INSURANCE CASE

ROWLANDSON SUICIDE

APPEAL DISMISSED

(Received May 10, 1.50 p.m.)

LONDON, May 9,

In dismissing the appeal of Mrs. d» la Poer Beresford against the judgment of the Appeal Court in the Bttwlandson insurance case, the 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 was 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 resource 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 for £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 find a premium of £454 due on August 3, 1934. The Court held that 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 the time of the suicide, and this was dismissed, leave to appeal to the House of Lords being granted.