## Facts

- Equitable Life Assurance Society issued two life-insurance policies on Jean M. Shrader’s life.
- John J. Shrader, Jean’s husband, was the primary beneficiary; Jean’s parents (later trustees of the Jean M. Wolford Charitable Trust) were contingent beneficiaries.
- Jean was strangled to death; no criminal homicide charge, conviction, or guilty plea was ever entered against John Shrader.
- Competing claims to the proceeds were made by Shrader and the trustees; Equitable filed an interpleader and deposited the proceeds with the court.
- The trustees alleged Shrader intentionally and feloniously killed Jean and therefore could not take the proceeds under the equitable “slayer” principle.
- Shrader argued he could be disqualified only if he had been convicted of, or pled guilty to, specified homicide offenses under Ohio Revised Code § 2105.19.

## Issues

1. Whether Ohio Revised Code § 2105.19 provides the exclusive method for disqualifying a life-insurance beneficiary alleged to have feloniously killed the insured.
2. Whether a beneficiary’s intentional and felonious killing of the insured may be established in a civil proceeding to bar receipt of life-insurance proceeds absent a criminal conviction.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Ohio reversed the court of appeals and reinstated the trial court’s judgment for the trustees.
- The court held § 2105.19 is not the exclusive means of disqualification; it does not abrogate the common-law rule barring a killer from profiting from the death.
- The court held the identity of a person who intentionally and feloniously causes another’s death may be determined in a civil proceeding to prevent the wrongdoer from receiving life-insurance proceeds.
- Because the trial court found Shrader intentionally and feloniously caused Jean’s death, he was barred from receiving the proceeds and the contingent beneficiaries were entitled to them.

## Legal Principles

- A person who intentionally and feloniously kills the insured is barred, under common law and equity, from receiving benefits flowing from the death, including life-insurance proceeds.
- Ohio Revised Code § 2105.19, which denies benefits to persons convicted of or pleading guilty to enumerated homicide offenses and treats them as predeceasing the decedent, supplements rather than displaces the common-law slayer rule.
- Absent clear legislative intent, statutes are construed not to impair preexisting common law.
- Civil courts may adjudicate disqualification based on intentional and felonious killing using civil standards of proof, even when no criminal prosecution results in conviction.

## Conclusion

Ohio permits courts in civil proceedings to determine that a beneficiary intentionally and feloniously killed the insured and, on that basis, deny life-insurance proceeds, notwithstanding the absence of a criminal conviction under § 2105.19.


Shrader v. Equitable Life Assurance Soc'y of the U.S., 20 Ohio St. 3d 41, 485 N.E.2d 1031 (Ohio 1985)