Friday, December 16, 2022

The Definition of Suicide

 By John R. Byrne

More textual interpretation from the Eleventh Circuit and Judge Pryor, this time tackling the meaning of "suicide" in a life insurance policy. The policy at issue, like all life insurance policies, excluded coverage if the policyholder committed suicide. But did "suicide by cop" count? The Eleventh Circuit said "yes." 

No American court had decided the question, so the Court took some time laying out its reasoning. Citing Justice Scalia and Bryan Garner, the Court wrote "The ordinary-meaning rule is the most fundamental semantic rule of interpretation." It then walked through a series of definitions from dictionaries and court opinions. The Court's conclusion--as ordinarily understood, "suicide" is not limited to instances where the decedent delivered the fatal blow himself. In other words, a person can commit suicide "indirectly." Comparing the case of a man throwing himself in front of a train and "suicide by cop," Judge Pryor wrote there was "no material distinction." He explained:

"Police officers are trained to, and have little choice but to, use deadly force to stop a civilian who threatens them, their fellow officers, and the public at large. See FLA. STAT. § 782.02 (2022). A civilian, aware of this fact, threatens the officers to provoke this predictable and lethal response in the same way that the man who throws himself before a train anticipates the predictable, lethal outcome of being run over. In both cases, a person intentionally causes his own death, even if an external force delivers the fatal blow. In other words, he commits “suicide.”

Seems right to me, especially when you think of Jack Kevorkian and physician-assisted suicide which, if you took the other side of the debate, wouldn't qualify as "suicide" either. Anyway...Happy Friday!

Caldwell Opinion by John Byrne on Scribd

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

It was pretty straight forward. I don't see how it could have gone any other way. A tragedy for sure, but pretty clear as a legal matter.

Here's the law:

"As the Florida Supreme Court put it, 'the words death ‘by his own hand or act’ should not be construed literally, but to mean death as a result of an intent on
the part of the insured to take his own life.' Gulf Life Ins. Co. v. Nash, 97 So. 2d 4, 6 (Fla. 1957)." It's not the 11th Circuit's place to reverse the Florida Supreme Court on interpretation of a Florida contract.

Here are the facts:

On October 8, 2020, Justin began showing signs of suicidal intent after learning that Michelle wanted a divorce. According to his mother, Justin called his parents to say goodbye at 3:00 a.m. Later that morning, he told Michelle that he was “waiting for the police to come and kill [him].” And around 7:00 a.m, Michelle called 911 to report “that Justin was ‘suicidal,’ that he was in the family garage in possession of a rifle, a shotgun, and another firearm, that he was ‘in the process of loading the weapons,’ that he ‘wanted to die by law enforcement,’ and that he ‘wanted to commit suicide by cop.’”

Police officers soon arrived at Justin and Michelle’s residence, where Michelle warned them that Justin “want[ed] to die” and “intended to start shooting until law enforcement shot him.” Officers tried to de-escalate the situation by urging Justin to surrender peacefully. In response, Justin cursed at the officers and ran to his truck to retrieve his rifle. The officers fired non-lethal rubber bullets to deter him, but Justin reached the truck, “grabbed the rifle, spun around, and lifted the rifle to shoot the [officers].” The officers then shot and killed Justin.

Rumpole said...

I guess they read intent into the words and look a little deeper into the meaning and logical results when it suits them. Of course a strict constructionist might argue that if the insurance contract wanted to cover suicide by cop then nothing prevented the company from writing that in the contract - and they didn’t so the court will not add words and meaning to a contract that the drafters did not include. But then who said the 11th was anything other than result oriented ? Not me.

Anonymous said...

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