Houchens v. American Home Assurance Co.
927 F.2d 163 (1991)
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Rule of Law:
A statutory presumption of death arising from a person's seven-year absence is insufficient, by itself, to satisfy the beneficiary's burden of proving the death was accidental for the purposes of collecting on an accidental death insurance policy.
Facts:
- Coulter Houchens was insured under two accidental death insurance policies issued by American Home Assurance Company.
- Mr. Houchens was an employee of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and was stationed in Saudi Arabia.
- In August 1980, Mr. Houchens took a week of vacation leave and traveled to Bangkok, Thailand.
- Immigration records confirm his arrival in Bangkok on August 15, 1980.
- He has not been seen or heard from since his arrival in Bangkok.
- Extensive searches by the State Department, FBI, ICAO, his wife, and the Red Cross failed to locate him.
- His wife, Alice Houchens, was the beneficiary of the policies.
Procedural Posture:
- In 1988, Alice Houchens brought an action in the Circuit Court of Loudoun County, Virginia, to have her husband declared legally dead.
- On April 29, 1988, the state court issued an order declaring that Coulter Houchens is presumed to have died between August 15 and August 29, 1980.
- Alice Houchens then sued American Home Assurance Company for breach of contract in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.
- American Home Assurance Company filed a motion for summary judgment, arguing there was no evidence of accidental death.
- The U.S. District Court granted summary judgment in favor of American.
- Houchens (appellant) appealed the district court's decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
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Issue:
Does a statutory presumption of death, arising from an insured's unexplained disappearance, create a genuine issue of material fact that the death was accidental, thereby allowing the beneficiary to overcome a motion for summary judgment in a suit for breach of contract on an accidental death policy?
Opinions:
Majority - Ervin, Chief Judge
No. A statutory presumption that an individual is dead does not create a corresponding presumption that the death was accidental. To recover under an accidental death policy, the plaintiff beneficiary bears the burden of proving that the death was caused by accidental means. Here, there are no circumstances surrounding Mr. Houchens' disappearance to suggest he was in a position of peril or that an accident was more probable than other causes such as murder, suicide, natural causes, or intentional disappearance. Unlike cases where the missing person was last seen in a dangerous environment, Mr. Houchens simply vanished, providing no factual basis for a jury to infer an accidental death without impermissibly piling an inference of accident upon the legal presumption of death. Because the evidence equally supports opposing conclusions about the cause of death, the plaintiff failed to make a sufficient showing on an essential element of her case, and summary judgment for the insurer was proper.
Analysis:
This case clarifies the distinction between the legal presumption of death and the evidentiary burden of proving the cause of death in insurance claims. It establishes that a beneficiary cannot simply rely on an unexplained disappearance to collect on an accidental death policy. The ruling reinforces the requirement for affirmative evidence, even if circumstantial, that points specifically to an accident. This decision makes it more difficult for beneficiaries to recover in missing person cases where the circumstances are devoid of any details suggesting peril, thereby protecting insurers from liability based on pure speculation.
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