U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, 1960

Aetna Life Insurance Company v. Gussie W. McDuffie

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit · Decided January 15, 1960 · No. 13930 · McAllister, Martin, Cecil

273 F.2d 609; 1960 U.S. App. LEXIS 5609 (Federal Reporter, Second Series)

Counsel

Gerald E. Schroeder, Detroit, Mich., and John H. Filer, Hartford, Conn., for appellant., Arthur H. Rice, Detroit, Mich. (Eugene J. Hirsch, Detroit, Mich., on the brief), for appellee.

Cases that cite this one

9 later published cases cite this decision.

Lunsford v. Western States Life Insurance (Colo. 1995)
Matter of Estate of Congdon (Minn. 1981)
John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance v. Willis (District Court, E.D. Michigan 1970)
STATE MUT. LIFE ASSUR. CO. OF AM. v. Hampton (Okla. 1985)
State Mutual Life Assurance Co. of America v. Hampton (Okla. 1985)
Sherrod v. Piedmont Aviation, Inc. (District Court, E.D. Tennessee 1979)
State Farm Life Insurance v. Smith (Ill. App. Ct. 1975)
John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company v. Willis (6th Cir. 1971)
John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance v. Willis (6th Cir. 1971)

This list shows which later cases cite this one. It does not say how they treated it, and no review of that has been done. Not a substitute for Shepard’s or KeyCite — verify before relying.

Opinion

PER CURIAM.

In this case, the Aetna Life Insurance Company has appealed from a judgment of the district court holding that the beneficiary of a life insurance policy on the life of her husband could not recover the proceeds of the policy, although she had been acquitted of feloniously causing his death. The insurance company had paid the proceeds of the policy to the wife of the insured only after her acquittal in the State Criminal Court.

After trying the action brought by the mother of the insured to recover the proceeds of the policy, the district court declared that the court was satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that the wife— in the light of her own testimony and that of an eye witness — had killed her husband intentionally and feloniously and not in self-defense. He accordingly allowed recovery by the mother of the insured in the suit brought on the policy.

The district court cited Schindler v. Royal Ins. Co., 258 N.Y. 310, 179 N.E. 711, 80 A.L.R. 1142, to the effect that the dissimilarity of object, procedure, degree and elements of proof between a criminal trial and a civil trial forbade that the judgment in the criminal case should be held to be decisive of the facts in the civil action. The court also cited United States v. National Association of Real Estate Boards, 339 U.S. 485, 493, 494, 70 S.Ct. 711, 94 L.Ed. 1007, and Day v. Gold Star Dairy, 307 Mich. 383, 389, 12 N.W.2d 5. The district judge recognized, of course, that the law of Michigan was controlling.

It would seem that the opinion of the highest court of Michigan in the last cited case was justification under Michigan law for the decision of the trial court.

For the reasons stated by Judge Levin in his opinion, reported in 160 F.Supp. 541, the judgment of the district court is affirmed.

Case-law data current through September 30, 2026. Source: CourtListener bulk data.