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The Green Bag
person in any event, as will presently appear. The above illustration is offered to show, as far as it may, to what a shadowy difference some de cisions will attach their reasoning for
allowing a recovery on suicide policies. A maxim which aids in keeping the law exact, though it progress, is the one just cited in regard to certainty. Could there be any lack of certainty— certainty to the highest degree in general. if neccssary——as to what persons are entitled to recover under a policy
payable
to
heirs?
This
distinction
between named beneficiaries and heirs
is said to rest, also, on the fact that the beneficiary has a vested interest which the assured will not be allowed to destroy. This is going the rule of commercial paper one better, by allow
ing a man to give not only a better title than he possesses, but to so trans
mit such title solely by his own wrong subsequent to the creation of the title. Moreover, unless the interest is so
absolutely vested in the beneficiary that the assured cannot substitute another as beneficiary, there seems no appreciable merit in this distinction.
And it is a fact that most life insurance policies of the present day provide that the assured may change the beneficiary at will. Therefore, in a majority of the life insurance policies now being written such a use of the word vested would be a radical departure from it use in its most appropriate sphere—in the law of real property. And, as the New York court has said, “There can be no such thing as a vested right to commit suicide.” The lack of legitimate significance with which the word vested is used in the decisions which purport to raise this distinction between a policy payable to one's estate or heirs and a policy payable to a named beneficiary is observable in an im
portant Illinois case (224 I11. 346) where the court said: “Where, however, a policy of that character is made payable to a third party, and contains no stipulation in reference to the in sured intentionally destroying his own life. it is held that in the event of the self-destruction of the insured while sane the beneficiary mayrecover, for the reason that his or her interest became a vested one upon the issuance of the policy." In this last above case the court was construing a benefit certificate in a fraternal society. The certificate had no provision for forfeiture in the event of the assured's suiciding, and the court said: "The mere absence of such a provision in the contract leads the applicant to conclude that the contract is not defeasible by intentional self destruction on the part of the insured." By such expounding of the law the assured is practically allowed to infer that he may ignore the implied con dition of his policy——the implied cove nant that he will show such a reasonable amount of good faith and square dealing with the company (which stands ready and able to make the stipulated pro vision for his dependent ones because others show that good faith) that he will not, by, at least, any criminal act of his own, mulct that company in the ex tra cost of making the provision within a shorter period of time than it would other wise have had'for the arrangement. Suppose the beneficiary is a creditor of the assured, and the estate of the assured who suicides is sufiicient with out the life insurance money to pay all decedent's debts. It seems that in such a case the law should tolerate a circuity quicker than sanction a wrong. And it would be a very slight circuity, if any, to have the creditor reimburse
himself out of the estate other than the insurance money: while the wrong of
