Marceau v. Travelers' Ins. Co.

Citations

• 101 Cal. 338
• 35 P. 856
• 1894 Cal. LEXIS 1038

Syllabus

<p>Criminal Law—Insanity as a Defense.—Insanity, as recognized in the criminal law of this state, is such a diseased and deranged condition of the mental faculties as to render the person incapable of distinguishing between right and wrong in relation to the particular act with which he is charged.</p> <p>Id.—Irresistible Impulse.—Irresistible impulse, so called, is not, of itself, a legal defense to a charge of felony.</p> <p>Life Insurance—Death Caused by Insane Person—Evidence—Ruling Without Prejudice—Abstract Testimony of Expert Witness.—In an action upon a life insurance policy where the company seeks to avoid liability upon the ground that the insured was killed by a third person, and the plaintiff claims that the person doing the killing was insane at the time he committed the deed, the allowance of a question asked an expert on insanity as to whether he understood “that if a person is insane while they may theoretically know the difference between right and wrong, that they are incapable of judging or resisting an impulse to do wrong? ” to which the witness answered that “they have no power to resist the insane impulse they have, although they know it was wrong, and they will hide and conceal the evidence of their crime, very often with more particularity and ingenuity than a sane person would do,” is not prejudicial error, the testimony being in the abstract to a certain phase or kind of insanity, and not addressed to the mental condition of the person killing the insured.</p> <p>Id.—Objectionable Question—Harmless Answer.—However objectionable a question may be, if the answer in no way prejudices the appellant’s rights, error of the court in allowing the answer to he given is harmless. „</p> <p>Id.—Improper Instructions—Abuse of Plea of Insanity.—In a civil action upon an insurance policy, where the party who killed the insured, and whose insanity is in question, is not a party to the action nor indirectly interested in the final result of the litigation,