CLARA HILL, APPELLANT,
v.
REBECCA HILL, APPELLEE
AI-generated. These summaries, headnotes, and key points are machine-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Always verify against the full opinion text below. Not legal advice.
Clara Hill, the legally married but estranged wife of Jim Hill, challenged summary judgment in favor of Rebecca Hill, who lived with Jim Hill and was designated as beneficiary of his group life insurance policy. The court held that absent evidence of undue influence beyond a bare presumption, a routine beneficiary designation by an insured to his employer is enforceable, and that prior cases involving changes of beneficiary from wife to mistress do not apply to initial designations.
The court held that a bare presumption of undue influence does not overcome a routine, regularly-made beneficiary designation to a group life insurance policy provided through employment, and that prior cases establishing a presumption against paramours apply only where there is evidence of actual undue influence and a change of beneficiary from a wife to a mistress, not to initial designations.
“We would not extend Beatty and Benner, which involved changes of beneficiary in each instance from a wife to a mistress who is shown by ample evidence to have held, and in other matters at least to have exercised, undue influence over the deceased.”
The court distinguishes the controlling precedent as applying only to changes of beneficiary with evidence of undue influence, not routine initial designations.
Previewing 1 of 3 key quotes on this case — the court’s exact language, pinpointed for members.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceJim Hill was employed by the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad and covered by a group life insurance policy. He was legally married to Clara Hill but was e…
The full statement of facts, procedural history, and disposition for this case are member content.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence© FLexlaw, Inc. — AI-generated enrichments are proprietary. All rights reserved.
Explore caselaw by topic → Browse Group Life Insurance cases and more on FLexlaw
Clara Hill was the discarded but not divorced wife of Jim Hill, who before his death was employed by the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad and insured under a group life policy. Summary judgment in favor of Rebecca Hill, legally Rebecca Parker, who lived with Jim Hill as his wife and bore his youngest child, was predicated on an affidavit showing that Hill had designated Rebecca as his beneficiary and resisted on the ground that there is a presumption of undue influence which must be overcome before a paramour may recover the proceeds of insurance.
Beatty v. Strickland, 136 Fla. 330, 186 So. 542 (1939) was an affirmance of findings on ample evidence that a mistress had in business affairs generally exercised strong influence on the insured. Comments in that opinion were extended in Benner v. Pedersen, Fla.App.1962, 143 So.2d 722, in which this Court affirmed a judgment awarding insurance proceeds to a widow where the mistress of the insured was held to bear the burden of proving an absence of undue influence as the procuring cause of a change in beneficiary.
This case involves an initial designation of beneficiary of a group life insurance policy provided in connection with the employment of the deceased and there is nothing in the record to suggest that the occasion for the designation was anything other than a routine request at the place of employment, to which the insured responded that Rebecca, his “wife” should receive the proceeds in the event of his death. We would not extend Beatty and Benner, which involved changes of beneficiary in each instance from a wife to a mistress who is shown by ample evidence to have held, and in other matters alt least to have exercised, undue influence over the deceased. Such evidence is lacking in this case, and the appellant relies solely on a bare presumption. Our task is to determine whether this is the situation in which a bare presumption ought to overcome the routine act, common in everyday experience, of designating a beneficiary of life insurance provided through the insured’s employer on a group basis. Our holding is no broader than that. We think the trial judge wisely determined that if nothing more were forthcoming from these parties than a presumption on Clara’s part that because Jim and Rebecca were not legally married Rebecca must prove an absence of undue influence, and a contrary presumption on Rebecca’s that a couple living as husband and wife are presumed to be lawfully married that the designation regularly and *456routinely made by Jim Hill to the employer’s insurance agent is entitled to enforcement by the courts. The annotation in 173 A.L.R. 716, while dealing with the right of the insured tó designate a mistress as beneficiary, a point not here in dispute, collects analogous cases and comments on Beatty as representative of a minority view. We think the writer of the annotation does not clearly distinguish the two issues of lawful designation and presumptive entitlement, but the cases will be instructive to the serious student.
Affirmed.
LILES, C. J., and PIERCE, J., concur.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By
-
Claudette P. Taylor v. Dellona M. Johnson, 581 So. 2d 1333 (Fla. 1st DCA 1990)…nt to the policy raising the coverage to $20,000. The policy amendment contained in the record lists the policy number as 393200S. In affirming the lower court’s order, we distinguished the instant case from the situation presented in Hill v. Hill, 222 So. 2d 454 (Fla. 2d DCA 1969), in which the lawful wife of an insured challenged the designation of the insured’s putative wife as the beneficiary on a life insurance contract. Because Hill did not involve the substitution of a putative spouse or a paramour fo…1 / 2
Authorities Cited
- Beatty v. Strickland, 136 Fla. 330 (Fla. 1939)
- Benner v. Pedersen, 143 So. 2d 722 (Fla. 2d DCA 1962)