Not all insurance law is boring.



This case from the 2nd Circuit involved a clause in a life insurance policy, providing:



"that the insurer 'will not pay if loss is caused by ...intentionally self-inflicted injuries' and that a compensable loss 'must result directly and independently of all other causes from accidental bodily injury.'"



The issue of the case is the same as asked in many criminal assault cases: if the person intended to do the act, but didn't intend the result, is it an intentional injury/death?



The particular case involved autoerotic asphyxiation. The deceased had rigged up some kind of harness and pulley system to choke himself . . . He accidentally died of strangulation.



(On a side note: would that actually be considered a malfunction? I think of it more as operator error.)



The insurer argued, and the 2nd Circuit agreed, that this was an "intentionally self-inflicted injury." The "independent of all other causes" part of the policy bolsters the argument, as the intentional self-strangulation could at least be considered related in some way to the death, even if an argument could be made for an accident/operator error to be classified as some superceding cause. The fact that the decedent didn't intend to die from this strangulation may make the death an "accident" but it didn't sever the relationship between that accident and the admittedly intentional act of autoerotic asphyxiation that was the cause of death.



At least, that's what they held last year.



In a rehearing this year, the 2nd Circuit reversed itself in this opinion. They focus on death as the "injury", not the strangulation, and drawing the distinction between what the decedent wanted - strangulation stopping short of death - and what occurred. They pointed to the safety mechanisms employed by the decedent:



"Daniel had apparently been in the middle of an auto-erotic act. He was tied up in various places by cord, and these cords had evidently been attached to a set of counter weights which were meant to give him an "out" if he started to lose consciousness."



Law.com has an article analyzing the new opinion here.



I've got a hypothetical for them to consider: how do you compare this to a mentally ill person making a serious suicide gesture? They intended to act as though they were committing suicide, but it is arguable they didn't intend death.



Another thought: why would the policy say intentionally self-inflicted injuries are an excluded cause of death, rather than simply saying suicide or intentional death is excluded? I believe the drafters intended the distinction. In this case, the injury - asphyxiation - was intentional, it is simply the death that was not.



(NOTE: I realized after posting only half the thing went up. Added the rest. Sorry).



UPDATE: In reading a similar 9th Circuit case posted here, I realize that the intentionally self-inflicted injury clause is separate from the suicide clause, and both were included in the 9th Circuit policy. So why are the courts interpreting this so as to make the self-inflicted injury clause duplicative of the suicide clause? That kind of redundancy doesn't make sense to me.