One of the standard exclusions in any Life policy is suicide. To prevent individuals from taking out cover, ending their life and then the cash sum being paid as a full benefit to relatives, or others, suicide is excluded. But when it comes to the circumstances surrounding a death caused by Police action, matters are more complicated. One case has been reported in the USA, which is of interest to US insurers.
Reuters reports than an initial ruling, that Justin Caldwell died by another’s hand, has been overturned on appeal, which means the insurer does not have to pay on the policy. Here’s an extract from the court paperwork;
“Upon the officers’ arrival, Michelle explained that Justin was upset because she told him that she wanted a divorce, and that afterwards he went
into the garage to load “multiple types of firearms” [ECF No. 1 ¶ 15]. SWAT team personnel tried to persuade Justin to surrender peacefully, but Justin began “swearing at [the SWAT team members], and, turning around, he started to run back to the truck” [ECF No. 1 ¶¶ 16–17]. The
SWAT team fired non-lethal rounds at Justin to prevent him from obtaining his gun, but Justin reached into his truck, “grabbed the rifle, spun around, and lifted the rifle to shoot the deputies” [ECF No. 1 ¶ 17]. Justin was shot and killed by the SWAT team.”
As ever, much of this dispute is about policy wording;
“Defendants take issue with Plaintiff’s reliance on the term “suicide by cop,” which Defendants argue is not a legal term but rather a term of art that describes a justified homicide— not suicide [ECF No. 29, p. 3]. Defendants contend that Justin’s manner of death did not trigger
the exclusionary clauses in the Policies, because the “plain meaning of the contract language is question answered.”
The argument in court was that Justin had NOT tried to kill himself, instead, the final act of pulling the trigger was done by others, rendering his death a homicide, not a suicide.
But the judgment was that a person “who induces an officer to shoot him has chosen the officer as his instrument in the same way that someone else might have chosen a noose or a needle.”
IE COMMENT
In the USA hundreds of people are shot and sometimes killed by Police officers every week. The exact circumstances of the incidents are analysed in depth, especially where the victim is black, latino, native american, asian or any other minority ethnicity. There are lots of people who refuse to comply with armed Police, for a variety of reasons; influence of drugs and alcohol being the primary ones. But are those who are enraged and choose to disobey an officer, for a few seconds, always aware of how this may be fatal?
It may seem an obvious conclusion that someone who is not high on booze or drugs and not mentally incapacited or impaired, must understand they might die. But was death their intention when they refused to comply? Confusion over the outcome could be relevant; for example, if non-deadly beanbag rounds or tasers have been deployed then you could argue the deceased had good readon to believe that more of the same may be deployed – not real bullets. Someone who is armed, or attempting to reach a firearm may believe they can shoot their way out of the situation, or increase their negotiating power at that moment.
Deciding that someone definitely had suicidal thoughts when they pointed a gun at cops, or tried to run, drive away or harm another person etc is always going to be a moot point. You cannot know their mind in those moments of extreme turmoil.
Perhaps the best way forward in the long term is to write a clause into Life policies to the effect that those who place themselves in mortal danger of being shot, when warned to stop, surrender or get on the ground by armed Police, FBI, agents etc – and crucially `fail to comply with instructions’ are assumed to be partially responsible for their own death – or serious injury – and therefore payments may be reduced and/or capped according to the policy schedule.
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