There was a movie that'd I'd seen recently and I'm going to change some details to avoid spoilers. But the idea will still be generally the same.
Jane Doe makes a mistake of some sort and poisons John Q Public. It
wasn't through malice but was something akin to grabbing the wrong
bottle when making dinner (she grabs the container saying "Rat Poison:
Kills all" instead of the container saying "Rabi's Potion: Season-All"
or whatever. Really a mistake more of inattention/neglect than anything
else, but she's a professional cook so might be expected to pay more attention or not have the rat poison and seasoning on the same shelf or such.)
When she realizes what she'd done, she's explaining how it'd take the ambulance 20 mins to get to them (out in the country) and how he'd be
dead in 10 and showing extreme remorse. So John's extremely pragmatic
and knows how this could affect her and her family (mother's an illegal immigrant and could be deported) and works out a way to make the time of death look later than it really was (knowing he wouldn't be found for
several hours) and to give her an alibi and then shoots himself to make
it look like suicide all along.
Legally speaking, would this be a suicide or an accidental death? Not
from her perspective or any possible repercussion on her side but let's
say there was an insurance policy that didn't pay out for suicide or
such. If he was going to be dead in 5 mins anyway and the ONLY person to
gain by him committing suicide was Jane (i.e. the insurance policy had someone else as a beneficiary and this person found out what really
happened and was able to prove he was dying anyway), would the insurance company be likely to prevail and not have to pay out?
On 9/21/2021 4:19 PM, Mike Anderson wrote:
There was a movie that'd I'd seen recently and I'm going to change
some details to avoid spoilers. But the idea will still be generally
the same.
Jane Doe makes a mistake of some sort and poisons John Q Public. It
wasn't through malice but was something akin to grabbing the wrong
bottle when making dinner (she grabs the container saying "Rat Poison:
Kills all" instead of the container saying "Rabi's Potion: Season-All"
or whatever. Really a mistake more of inattention/neglect than
anything else, but she's a professional cook so might be expected to
pay more attention or not have the rat poison and seasoning on the
same shelf or such.)
When she realizes what she'd done, she's explaining how it'd take the
ambulance 20 mins to get to them (out in the country) and how he'd be
dead in 10 and showing extreme remorse. So John's extremely pragmatic
and knows how this could affect her and her family (mother's an
illegal immigrant and could be deported) and works out a way to make
the time of death look later than it really was (knowing he wouldn't
be found for several hours) and to give her an alibi and then shoots
himself to make it look like suicide all along.
Legally speaking, would this be a suicide or an accidental death? Not
from her perspective or any possible repercussion on her side but
let's say there was an insurance policy that didn't pay out for
suicide or such. If he was going to be dead in 5 mins anyway and the
ONLY person to gain by him committing suicide was Jane (i.e. the
insurance policy had someone else as a beneficiary and this person
found out what really happened and was able to prove he was dying
anyway), would the insurance company be likely to prevail and not have
to pay out?
The cause of death is suicide. Same as if you had cancer and committed suicide to avoid the pain and other unpleasant symptoms.
And in most cases, if the insurance policy had a clause against suicide
the insurer would not have to pay.
Also, because John didn't die of the poison, Jane is not guilty of
negligent manslaughter, even if her status as a professional would
normally lead to that conclusion.
However, she could still be tried and perhaps convicted of a lesser
charged like reckless endangerment -- on the basis that she should have
known better.
Btw, in the US there is a 2 year limit on suicide clauses in life
insurance policies, and some states have reduced that to 1 year. The
idea is to protect the insurance company from somebody buying a policy
with the intent of committing suicide to benefit their spouse, girl/boyfriend, child, etc.
Personally I find this unlikely. Maybe if the insured is already dying
of some disease (but failing to disclose that on the application would nullify the policy anyway), or if they are serving life-without-parole
and figure their life isn't worth much to them anyway. But insurance companies are paranoid about it, so...
Legally speaking, would this be a suicide or an accidental death?
On Tue, 21 Sep 2021 16:19:32 -0700 (PDT), Mike Anderson <prabbit237@gmail.com.com> wrote:
Legally speaking, would this be a suicide or an accidental death?
It would depend on the jurisdiction. If the jury decides it was an
accident it could be involuntary manslaughter or negligent homicide.
Yeah, my wording wasn't the best in the world and I do realize
even accidental death can result in criminal or civil legal
issues. So the question was more along the lines of what would be
considered as the cause of death.
On 9/21/2021 7:45 PM, Barry Gold wrote:
On 9/21/2021 4:19 PM, Mike Anderson wrote:
There was a movie that'd I'd seen recently and I'm going to change some
details to avoid spoilers. But the idea will still be generally the
same.
Jane Doe makes a mistake of some sort and poisons John Q Public. It
wasn't through malice but was something akin to grabbing the wrong
bottle when making dinner (she grabs the container saying "Rat Poison:
Kills all" instead of the container saying "Rabi's Potion: Season-All"
or whatever. Really a mistake more of inattention/neglect than anything
else, but she's a professional cook so might be expected to pay more
attention or not have the rat poison and seasoning on the same shelf or
such.)
When she realizes what she'd done, she's explaining how it'd take the
ambulance 20 mins to get to them (out in the country) and how he'd be
dead in 10 and showing extreme remorse. So John's extremely pragmatic
and knows how this could affect her and her family (mother's an illegal
immigrant and could be deported) and works out a way to make the time of >>> death look later than it really was (knowing he wouldn't be found for
several hours) and to give her an alibi and then shoots himself to make
it look like suicide all along.
Legally speaking, would this be a suicide or an accidental death? Not
from her perspective or any possible repercussion on her side but let's
say there was an insurance policy that didn't pay out for suicide or
such. If he was going to be dead in 5 mins anyway and the ONLY person to >>> gain by him committing suicide was Jane (i.e. the insurance policy had
someone else as a beneficiary and this person found out what really
happened and was able to prove he was dying anyway), would the insurance >>> company be likely to prevail and not have to pay out?
The cause of death is suicide. Same as if you had cancer and committed
suicide to avoid the pain and other unpleasant symptoms.
And in most cases, if the insurance policy had a clause against suicide
the insurer would not have to pay.
That's pretty much the same as what I was thinking. This movie didn't have
an insurance policy in jeopardy but the issue is somewhat the same.
Also, because John didn't die of the poison, Jane is not guilty of
negligent manslaughter, even if her status as a professional would
normally lead to that conclusion.
However, she could still be tried and perhaps convicted of a lesser
charged like reckless endangerment -- on the basis that she should have
known better.
Yes, I know she can be charged with something lesser (or even a civil
suit.)
Btw, in the US there is a 2 year limit on suicide clauses in life
insurance policies, and some states have reduced that to 1 year. The idea
is to protect the insurance company from somebody buying a policy with
the intent of committing suicide to benefit their spouse, girl/boyfriend,
child, etc.
Yeah, mine has a 1-year clause and I figured some sort of a time limit
period was fairly standard (just didn't know it was mandated.)
Personally I find this unlikely. Maybe if the insured is already dying of
some disease (but failing to disclose that on the application would
nullify the policy anyway), or if they are serving life-without-parole
and figure their life isn't worth much to them anyway. But insurance
companies are paranoid about it, so...
I think the most interesting part of this is the possible
insurance angle. So how would this scenario work? Assume John has
a policy that is less than a year old and wants to make sure his
family can collect on it. He also wants to avoid leaving his
family with the stigma of thinking he had an emotional or mental
problem that caused him to want to take his own life. So he writes
a note that clearly explains that he has been accidentally
poisoned and is shooting himself because he knows he cannot can
get help in time and wants to avoid a slow and painful death. He
emphasizes in his note that he is not committing suicide in the
classic sense but is just trying to minimize his pain from a drawn
out accidental death. Maybe he even records his message in the
form of a video or audio so it can be confirmed it is from him. I
wonder if this could be used as evidence to the insurance company
that he did not intend to commit suicide. Presumably the autopsy
will confirm the poison in his system.
"Rick" <rick@nospam.com> wrote in news:siiqk0$pji$1@gioia.aioe.org:
I think the most interesting part of this is the possible
insurance angle. So how would this scenario work? Assume John has
a policy that is less than a year old and wants to make sure his
family can collect on it. He also wants to avoid leaving his
family with the stigma of thinking he had an emotional or mental
problem that caused him to want to take his own life. So he writes
a note that clearly explains that he has been accidentally
poisoned and is shooting himself because he knows he cannot can
get help in time and wants to avoid a slow and painful death. He
emphasizes in his note that he is not committing suicide in the
classic sense but is just trying to minimize his pain from a drawn
out accidental death. Maybe he even records his message in the
form of a video or audio so it can be confirmed it is from him. I
wonder if this could be used as evidence to the insurance company
that he did not intend to commit suicide. Presumably the autopsy
will confirm the poison in his system.
Insurance companies are not in business to help people. They're in
business to make money. So they would fight this one and win.
"Rick" <rick@nospam.com> wrote in news:siiqk0$pji$1@gioia.aioe.org:
I think the most interesting part of this is the possible
insurance angle. So how would this scenario work? Assume John has
a policy that is less than a year old and wants to make sure his
family can collect on it. He also wants to avoid leaving his
family with the stigma of thinking he had an emotional or mental
problem that caused him to want to take his own life. So he writes
a note that clearly explains that he has been accidentally
poisoned and is shooting himself because he knows he cannot can
get help in time and wants to avoid a slow and painful death. He
emphasizes in his note that he is not committing suicide in the
classic sense but is just trying to minimize his pain from a drawn
out accidental death. Maybe he even records his message in the
form of a video or audio so it can be confirmed it is from him. I
wonder if this could be used as evidence to the insurance company
that he did not intend to commit suicide. Presumably the autopsy
will confirm the poison in his system.
Insurance companies are not in business to help people. They're in
business to make money. So they would fight this one and win.
Mike Anderson <prabbit237@gmail.com.com> wrote:
Yeah, my wording wasn't the best in the world and I do realize
even accidental death can result in criminal or civil legal
issues. So the question was more along the lines of what would be
considered as the cause of death.
If someone does something that will surely cause someone to die, even
in a very short period of time, but something happens to kill the
person even sooner, then the actual cause of death is referred to as an intervening cause. So the first action can no longer be murder because
it didn't actually cause the death. It can be something else like
assault with intent to commit murder or battery.
On 9/23/2021 11:24 AM, Stuart O. Bronstein wrote:
Mike Anderson <prabbit237@gmail.com.com> wrote:
Yeah, my wording wasn't the best in the world and I do realize
even accidental death can result in criminal or civil legal
issues. So the question was more along the lines of what would be
considered as the cause of death.
If someone does something that will surely cause someone to die, even
in a very short period of time, but something happens to kill the
person even sooner, then the actual cause of death is referred to as an
intervening cause. So the first action can no longer be murder because
it didn't actually cause the death. It can be so mething else like
assault with intent to commit murder or battery.
This actually helped clarify my initial question in that I was basically >asking about "would the suicide help lower (even if not completely
eliminate) the legal issues for the person who made the mistake?" (and I >couldn't really think of exactly how to word the question.)
So basically you're saying that whether it was intentional and premeditated >or if it was simply very negligent, the final legal penalty would still be >reduced (anywhere from "it's now attempted 1st-degree murder" to "you might >only have to pay the surviving family $100k in the civil suit instead of
$1m because you didn't cause the actual death") since there was the >intervening cause, right?
And actually, with pretty much any sort of poisoning, there's *is* a >possibility of survival, even if it's exceedingly slim (unless we're
talking about something just way beyond the "normal" like 5 pounds of rat >poison or such. But poisons are generally rated in terms of LD50, where >that's the amount that would kill half of the people, or LD99, which is the >amount that would kill 99% of the people.) So if the person didn't commit >suicide, there's a chance (however small) that they *would* survive so the >"was it murder or was it suicide" would have to take that into account as >well.
Homicide is basically "the killing of another person" and suicide
is "the killing of yourself" (maybe not exactly how the law
defines them but it's close.) So could there be such a thing as
"involuntary suicide" where an insurance policy can be refused
because the dead person was stupid/negligent in climbing over the
20' fence that separated him from the lions at the zoo or had
stood out on the edge of the cliff so he could get a selfie with
the sign saying "stay away from the edge of the cliff"? I know
they have exceptions for things like skydiving, etc. but I've
never heard of them disallowing a policy for sheer stupidity. But
yet it seems that such stunts WOULD fall under "involuntary
suicide" if such is a thing. Or how about the "suicide by cop" or
even the guy that wasn't wanting to die but he miscalculated the
timer on the bomb that he was trying to use to open the safe?
Mike Anderson <prabbit237@gmail.com.com> wrote:
Homicide is basically "the killing of another person" and suicide
is "the killing of yourself" (maybe not exactly how the law
defines them but it's close.) So could there be such a thing as
"involuntary suicide" where an insurance policy can be refused
because the dead person was stupid/negligent in climbing over the
20' fence that separated him from the lions at the zoo or had
stood out on the edge of the cliff so he could get a selfie with
the sign saying "stay away from the edge of the cliff"? I know
they have exceptions for things like skydiving, etc. but I've
never heard of them disallowing a policy for sheer stupidity. But
yet it seems that such stunts WOULD fall under "involuntary
suicide" if such is a thing. Or how about the "suicide by cop" or
even the guy that wasn't wanting to die but he miscalculated the
timer on the bomb that he was trying to use to open the safe?
It wouldn't be called involuntary suicide - if it's not intentional
the life insurance should cover it. As far as I'm aware normally
it's just called accidental death, though some are calling it the
latest winner of the Darwin award.
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