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On May 1, 1952, Shirley Diann Weldon, two years old, was murdered. This was not the first tragic death in the Weldon family. Hours after Shirley's birth, her sister had also died, but the event was chalked up to an unavoidable tragedy. But when Shirley died, her mother demanded an autopsy, which revealed that the girl had been poisoned with arsenic.
The only common denominator between the two deaths appeared to be the child's "aunt-in-law" (the widow of the mother's brother), Earle C. Dennison, who had cared for both children shortly before their deaths. In the case of Shirley's older sister, Aunt Earle was caring for the older child while the mother was giving birth to Shirley. In Shirley's case, Aunt Earle had been visiting the family's farm home in Elmore County, Alabama. While the rest of the family had been out doing chores, Aunt Earle gave the girl an orange drink, after which she became ill. In response, Aunt Earle gave the girl a bottle of Coca-Cola which she had been seen shaking.
Shirley was rushed to Wetumpka General Hospital, where Aunt Earle worked as a surgical nurse and where she was involved in her niece's care. While Shirley was still clinging to life, Aunt Earle left the hospital to visit an insurance agent in order to pay the premium on a policy that was about to lapse.
At the mother's insistence, an autopsy was performed, and the aunt, a surgical nurse, was present during the autopsy. The autopsy, performed by state toxicologist Dr. C. J. Rehling, found the cause of death to be arsenic poisoning. Aunt Earle was subsequently arrested and confessed to the murder. She was convicted and sentenced to death, and the conviction was affirmed by the Alabama Supreme Court. Dennison v. State, 66 So. 2d 552 (1953). She was executed in the electric chair on September 4, 1953. She was the 16th woman executed in Alabama history, and had the distinction of being the first white woman to receive the death penalty in that state. The murderer's last words were reportedly: "Please forgive me for everything I did. I forgive everybody."
The aunt's motive was to collect life insurance. She had taken out three life insurance policies on Shirley with three different companies. One of these policies was about to lapse, the reason for her last-minute jaunt to the insurance agent while her niece lay dying in the hospital. The policies totalled $6500.
Shirley's father, Gaston Weldon, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the three insurance companies, arguing that the issuance of these policies provided the motive for murder, but for which his daughter would still be alive. The jury agreed, and awarded damages of $75,000. The insurance companies then appealed to the Alabama Supreme Court.
The focus in the appellate court was on the issue of insurable interest. The court first held that an aunt or aunt-in-law did not, without more, have an insurable interest in a niece or nephew. While the court conceded that there might be exceptions to this rule, such as in the case of an aunt living in the same household, there were no such facts in this case. Of course, the insurance policies in the case had never paid, since the case had already been determined to be a murder.
But the more important issue was whether issuing a policy where there was no insurable interest gave rise to a wrongful death suit, when that policy served as the motive for a subsequent murder.
The insurance companies first argued, with little success, that Mrs. Dennison was presumed to have known the law, including the law which states that the policy was void due to lack of insurable interest. Since she was presumed to have this knowledge, the insurance companies argued that the policies provided no motive. The court quickly dismissed this argument. While it acknowledged that a criminal defendant is presumed to know the law, there was ample evidence that she expected the policies to be honored.
The insurance companies then turned to their main argument, that there was no proximate causation because of the intervening criminal act. In particular, they argued that the insurable interest rule was designed to protect insurance companies from fraudulent claims, and that they would have been within their rights to deny the claim on those grounds.
Again, the Supreme Court disagreed, stating famously: "The rule is designed to protect human life. Policies in violation of the insurable interest rule are not dangerous because they are illegal; they are illegal because they are dangerous."
In this case, the particular danger (the murder of the insured) was exactly the subject of the lawsuit. For that reason, the court rejected the insurance comapanies' causation argument.
For these reasons, the Alabama Supreme Court affirmed the judgment against the insurance companies.
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Richard P. Clem is an attorney and continuing legal education (CLE) provider in Minnesota. He has been in private practice in the Twin Cities for 25 years. He has a J.D., cum laude, from Hamline University School of Law in St. Paul and a B.A. in History from the University of Minnesota. His reported cases include: Asociacion Nacional de Pescadores a Pequena Escala o Artesanales de Colombia v. Dow Quimica de Colombia, 988 F.2d 559, rehearing denied, 5 F.3d 530 (5th Cir. 1993), cert. denied, 510 U.S. 1041 (1994); LaMott v. Apple Valley Health Care Center, 465 N.W.2d 585 (Minn. Ct. App. 1991); Abo el Ela v. State, 468 N.W.2d 580 (Minn. Ct. App. 1991).
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