High Court Denies Payout of Life Insurance in Overdose : Law: State jurists say family cannot collect on a portion of coverage because man could have expected problems from cocaine use. Ruling draws fine line for deaths by ‘accidental means.’

The California Supreme Court held Monday that the Orange County survivors of a man who voluntarily ingested cocaine and died of an overdose cannot collect life insurance benefits intended to cover deaths by “accidental means.”

In a 5-2 decision, the court said that the death was not caused by “accidental means” because the deceased could have reasonably anticipated that death or great bodily injury would occur from ingesting a hazardous, illegal drug.

The ruling leaves California in the minority of states that distinguish insurance coverage for accidental death from that for death caused by “accidental means.” Under the latter definition, a fatality that results from an intentional action that could lead to death--such as participating in a particularly dangerous sport--would not be covered, according to one of the attorneys in the case.

“Courts around the country have abolished the distinction because it is a distinction without meaning,” said Santa Ana attorney Richard A. Cohn. “To uphold the distinction simply allows the Supreme Court to choose when and where it wants to draw the line. . . .”

The case was brought by the Santa Ana mother and sister of Michael P. Weil, who died at 32 of a cocaine overdose. Weil, an engineer in the semiconductor industry, was in San Francisco on business in 1985 and was staying at one of the city’s most elegant hotels when he ingested enough cocaine to kill himself.

Federal Kemper Life Assurance Company paid his mother and sister, Lola Brown Weil and Michelle Weil of Santa Ana, $100,000 as beneficiaries of the life insurance policy but refused to allow them to collect another $100,000 under an accidental death rider in the policy.

A trial court and a Court of Appeal ruled against the insurance company, which appealed the case to the state’s high court.

” . . . It is clear,” said Justice Ronald George, writing for the majority, “that California cases in a variety of factual settings have interpreted policies affording coverage for death effected through accidental means to preclude coverage for voluntary and intentional conduct that results in unintended death.”

Justices Stanley Mosk and Joyce Kennard, the most moderate members of the conservative court, dissented in a 106-page opinion that was twice as long as the majority decision.

They argued that the survivors are entitled to collect under the policy because the overdose was accidental. “In all cases in which the insured’s act was more than negligent but not tantamount to suicide,” Mosk wrote, “the insured can reasonably expect to be covered.”

Mosk noted that cocaine-related deaths are only a recent phenomenon, and at the time of Weil’s death, the drug was the recreational choice of young, upwardly mobile professionals such as Weil.

The evidence indicated Weil was only an occasional user and did not expect to be harmed by the drug, Mosk said. Only 3.6% of all cocaine-related deaths in 1985 were caused by orally ingesting the drug, the method apparently used by Weil, the justice said.

“Far from believing that death would follow in all probability,” Mosk wrote, “the reasonable person would have believed it highly improbable that such modest recreational use would kill him.”

Cohn, the attorney for Weil’s mother and sister, said the majority decision was one more in a long line of pro-insurance industry rulings by the state’s high court.

“It is just a tragedy to see the California Supreme Court narrowing the ability for victims and people who have been injured to recover for their losses,” he said. “At every turn, the California Supreme Court is going toward helping the insurance industry.” But Daniel Maguire, the Los Angeles attorney who represented Kemper, said the ruling correctly “furthers the public policy in California that we should not treat manifestly dangerous activity the same as an accident.”

“If people engage in violent, dangerous, illegal and reckless behavior,” Maguire said, “there is not going to be double indemnity under these types of policies.”

Neither the beneficiaries of the policy nor the insurance company could be reached for comment.

In another case decided Monday, the court held that a logging plan approved before the Northern spotted owl was declared a threatened species can still stand but will have to be amended to conform to later rules intended to protect the animal.

An attorney for an environmental group said the decision will affect a handful of logging plans in California.