A case of grave importance to Life Insurance Offices was
decided after a protracted trial on Thursday. Isaac Lotinga insured his life in the Commercial Union Assurance Company, and afterwards, as a coroner's jury believed, poisoned himself. The Company therefore refused to pay, alleging in addition that the deceased was an habitual drunkard. The evidence on the latter point was conflicting ; but the Judge—Mr. Justice Hawkins— betrayed in his summing-up a belief that Lotinga had poisoned himself, and that he was a man who drank immensely, though he could bear an unusual quantity of liquor. The Jury, how- ever, would none of it. Their impression was obviously the popular one,—that an Insurance Office should inquire at the time of insurance, and then pay its policies, and should regard suicide from insanity like a stroke of lightning, and a habit of drinking like any other disease brought on by the habits of the assured. That, no doubt, is the wise course for Insurance Offices to take, especially in their calculations ; but it lands them in this per- plexity. If they do not resist payment iu case of suicide, they are pro tante encouraging a crime. So, however, is the Legis- lature, which has just abolished the Crown's right to seize the property of suicides, and we suppose it is necessary to accept the now invariable verdict of insanity. Of course, in insanity there is no crime ; and the Offices must consider suicide, like a fall caused by apoplexy, as a result of disease.
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