RiverSource denied Ms. Arena's husband's claims for benefits under the policies, citing their suicide exclusions.

Mr. Arena asked RiverSource to reconsider its decision, contending that her death was a result of medications that she had been prescribed, but RiverSource reaffirmed its decision to deny coverage.

Mr. Arena sued and RiverSource moved for summary judgment.

The U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey granted RiverSource's motion, notwithstanding a report by a forensic expert who opined that Ms. Arena could have suffered a medication-induced disorder that altered her state of consciousness to the point that she was unable to understand the consequences of her actions or form suicidal intent. The district court reasoned that the suicide exclusions in the RiverSource policies applied even if Ms. Arena would not have committed suicide but for the effect that the medications had on her state of mind.

Mr. Arena appealed to the Third Circuit, arguing that the suicide exclusions required that Ms. Arena intended to take her life but that she did not have that intent.

The RiverSource Insurance Policies

The suicide exclusion in one of the RiverSource policies stated:

If the insured, whether sane or insane, dies by suicide within 2 years from the Policy Date, Our liability is limited to an amount equal to the total premiums paid.

The suicide exclusion in the other RiverSource policy stated:

Suicide by the Insured, whether sane or insane, within two years from the Policy Date is not covered by this policy. In this event the only amount payable by Us to the beneficiary will be the premiums which You have paid, minus any Indebtedness and partial surrenders.

The Third Circuit's Decision

The Third Circuit affirmed.

In its decision, the circuit court explained that "intent" to achieve the result of death was a required element for suicide under New Jersey law.

It added that intent could be "inferred" from a decedent taking actions that would result in death, and that circumstantial evidence was often the only evidence for suicide and frequently was used to establish intent.

The circuit court then found that Ms. Arena's actions – taking two of her husband's leather belts, moving a chair from another bedroom into a bathroom, fastening the belts together and wrapping one around her neck, arranging the belts in a manner to effect a hanging, and stepping off the chair and hanging herself – amounted to "sufficient circumstantial evidence" to establish not only that Ms. Arena had "awareness" that those actions would end her life but also that she had "intended to do so."

The circuit court acknowledged that this intent "may have arisen suddenly on an otherwise relatively normal morning," but it said that taking those actions was "strong circumstantial evidence that at the time [Ms. Arena] took her own life, she intended that result."

RiverSource was not required to produce direct evidence in the form of a suicide note or contemporaneous expression of her intentions, the Third Circuit added.

It then found that evidence as to Ms. Arena's "general mental state being inconsistent with suicide, as well as her moral aversion to suicide" did not undermine the "undisputed facts showing deliberate acts which can only be explained as an effort to kill herself, even if she was not thinking clearly or was insane, when she acted."

Finally, the circuit court also was not persuaded by evidence that Ms. Arena was acting impulsively under the control of her medication and that, as a result, the medications obfuscated her ability to form the requisite intent – in other words, that the drugs compelled her to take the actions she took. The circuit court concluded that the presence of medications did not mean that deaths could not qualify as suicides, and that "acting on an irresistible impulse" was "different than having no intent or no comprehension of the actions one is taking."

The case is Arena v. Riversource Life Ins. Co., No. 19-1043 (3d Cir. Sep. 18, 2019).