## Facts

- Mobile Life Insurance Company issued life insurance policies totaling $7,000 on the life of Craven McLemore, payable to third-party beneficiaries.
- In Louisiana, Brame intentionally shot McLemore on October 24, 1875; McLemore died on October 26, 1875.
- The insurer alleged the killing was illegal and tortious and caused the insurer a pecuniary loss equal to amounts due (and at least partly paid) under the policies.
- The insurer sued Brame in federal circuit court in Louisiana seeking damages measured by its policy liability, relying in part on Louisiana Civil Code delict provisions addressing liability for fault and a limited death-related action for specified relatives.

## Issues

1. Whether, absent a statute, common law permits an insurer to recover in tort from a killer for the insurer’s contractual payout caused by the insured’s death.
2. Whether Louisiana Civil Code provisions on delicts and death-related actions create a cause of action for an insurer (as distinct from the enumerated relatives) to recover its losses resulting from a homicide.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment for Brame.
- The Court held no such action lies at common law because civil liability for an injury resulting in death is not recognized absent statutory creation.
- The Court held the Louisiana Civil Code’s death-related right of action is limited to the specified beneficiaries (certain close relatives) and does not extend to an insurer whose loss is contractual and derivative.
- The insurer therefore could not recover from Brame the amounts it owed or paid under the policies.

## Legal Principles

- At common law, no civil action lies for an injury that results in death unless a statute creates the right.
- Statutes creating wrongful-death or survival actions are confined to the beneficiaries expressly named and are not extended by implication to other claimants.
- A third party’s contractual or consequential loss resulting from another’s death (such as an insurer’s policy payout) does not, without clear statutory authorization, create an independent tort claim against the wrongdoer.

## Conclusion

The Court rejected an insurer’s attempt to recoup policy payments from the person who killed the insured, holding that wrongful-death liability is purely statutory and that Louisiana’s statutory beneficiaries for death-related recovery do not include insurers with only a contractual, indirect loss.


Mobile Life Ins. Co. v. Brame, 95 U.S. 754 (1877)