O.C.G.A.

O.C.G.A. § 33-24-42 (2019)

Payment of claims in event of simultaneous deaths

✓ O.C.G.A. — 2019 edition (Public.Resource.Org Release 73)

Code text and O.C.G.A. statutory annotations on this page reflect the 2019 Official Code of Georgia Annotated (Public.Resource.Org Release 73, 2019-08-21; public domain per Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). The Syfert case-law annotations in Notes of Decisions, below, are current.

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Where the individual insured or the annuitant and the beneficiary designated in a life insurance policy or policy insuring against accidental death or in an annuity contract have died and there is not sufficient evidence that they have died otherwise than simultaneously, the proceeds of the policy or contract shall be distributed as if the insured or annuitant had survived the beneficiary unless otherwise specifically provided in the policy or contract. Payment made in accordance with this Code section shall fully discharge the insurer from all claims under the policy or contract unless, before payment is made, the insurer has received at its home office written notice by or on behalf of some other person that the person claims to be entitled to the payment or some interest in the policy or contract.

History

Code 1933, § 56-2426, enacted by Ga. L. 1960, p. 289, § 1.

Annotations

JUDICIAL DECISIONS This section makes the actual circumstances of the parties’ deaths irrelevant and provides that for purposes of distribution the property will be disposed of as if the insured survived the beneficiary. Estate of Wien v. Commissioner, 441 F.2d 32 (5th Cir. 1971). Once it is found that the actual order of the parties’ respective deaths is not ascertainable, this section applies so as to make the prescribed property disposition man-

datory regardless of the factual circumstances which might have existed at the time of the parties’ demise. Estate of Wien v. Commissioner, 441 F.2d 32 (5th Cir. 1971). Sufficient evidence standard. - Use of phrase ‘‘sufficient evidence’’ in O.C.G.A. § 33-24-42 does not require higher standard of appellate review than the normal ‘‘any evidence’’ rule. Hitchcock v. Key, 163 Ga. App. 901, 296 S.E.2d 625 (1982).

RESEARCH REFERENCES ALR. - Insurance: presumption and burden of proof as to accident in case of death from poison, 7 A.L.R. 1226. Construction and application of statute

respecting proceeds of life insurance in event of death of named beneficiary before insured, 167 A.L.R. 1021.

Notes of Decisions

Cited in 2 cases, 1984–2006 · leading case: Jonas v. Jonas, 633 S.E.2d 544 (Ga. Ct. App. 2006).

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Jonas v. Jonas, 633 S.E.2d 544 (Ga. Ct. App. 2006). · cites it 2× “But the uncle and the grandmother failed to make an offer of proof as to what the representative would have said. “This Court cannot determine the propriety of the trial court’s ruling without a proffer of the excluded evidence or testimony.”

Bland v. Ussery, 322 S.E.2d 335 (Ga. Ct. App. 1984). · cites it 2× “) or OCGA § 33-24-42 be applied here, the record is equally silent as to whether Nolan Ussery murdered Glenice Ussery so that a question of fact remains whether the provisions of OCGA § 53-4-6 and OCGA § 33-25-13 would step in to bar the policy provision from transferring the…”

Annotations are extracted automatically from the opinions in the Syfert caselaw corpus and ranked by authority, recency, and treatment. Dots show Syfertize treatment of the citing case itself.