One David Shomers claimed to be the proper beneficiary on a Life Insurance Policy taken out on the life of the co-founder of his business, one Anthony R. Andreoni. Mr. Andreoni died. One Miriam Andreoni, who apparently also claimed to be a beneficiary, assigned her interest to the Federal Trade Commission. The Life Insurance Company filed suit, Mr. Shomers was named a Defendant, and the FTC was granted leave to intervene. This complicated set of facts comes from Reassure America Life Insurance Co. v. Warner, Download Reassure America Life Insurance Co. v. Warner (S.D. Fla. Case No. 08.22664, Order on Motions For Summary Judgment Filed Nov. 17, 2010) PUBLIC ACCESS also published as 2010 WL 4782776 (S.D. Fla. November 17, 2010)(authorized password required to access Westlaw).
Mr. Shomers died after he filed a Verified Answer and before he was deposed in the case. There came an issue of whether the following Paragraph 43 of his Verified Answer was admissible under the Federal Rules of Evidence:
Andreoni [the decedent whose life was insured in the policy at issue in this case] duped Shomers into signing the form of the request for change of beneficiary of the Policy (which Andreoni later altered and forwarded to [Valley Forge Life Insurance Company] ) by presenting Shomers an incomplete form, falsely representing that it was required in connection with a pending policy renewal, intimidating him in executing same, and then, when Shomers said he would hold on to the executed form until he obtained clarification from the court appointed Monitor, Andr[e]oni grabbed the form and fled.
Verified Answer ΒΆ 43. Because of his death, Shomers will not be able to testify to these facts at trial.
Reassure America Life Insurance Co. v. Warner, 2010 WL 4782776 at *2. The Court in this Case held, for various reasons including lack of corroboration, that this Verified Paragraph was not admissible.
Thereafter, the Court granted the FTC's Motion for Summary Judgment for the Life Insurance proceeds, and denied the Shomers Estate's Motion for Summary Judgment. Id. at *9.
The author is Co-Chair of the American Bar Association's Subcommittee on Life, Health, and Disability Insurance of the Insurance Coverage Litigation Committee.
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