A Supreme Court ruling allowed a man to collect 23,600 euros from his deceased sister’s life insurance after being declared the perpetrator of her murder. The reason: the judge considered that article 20.2 of the Penal Code should be applied and declared that he was not responsible for presenting a complete psychic alteration that prevented him from understanding the illegality of the act.
The events date back to 2008, when the deceased took out life insurance with Ibercaja and named her brother, León, as the sole beneficiary. The amount of this was 23,600 euros and its objective was that, in the event that she was missing, the man would have sufficient financial resources to be able to live. A decision that he made, well He used to come to his home every day to take care of him. and help you with household chores.
However, one day, when he arrived at his brother’s house to go to a doctor’s appointment, he saw that he was not yet ready. It was at that moment that the man attacked her, giving him two hammer blows on the headwhich was the cause of his death. This case was dealt with by the Provincial Court of Logroño, whose court ruled that León had been the author of the murder.
His daughter claimed the amount of the victim’s life insurance
Despite this, the man was acquitted according to the provisions of article 20.2 of the Penal Code, since it was considered that “the cause of complete non-imputability of complete mental alteration, which prevented him from understanding the illegality of his actions,” occurred. However, he was not released, but was placed under a regime of internment in a psychiatric penitentiary center for 20 years.
Years later, the Court of First Instance number 3 of Alicante granted guardianship of León to his daughter, Martawith the aim of protecting you. It was then that she decided to claim the amount of her aunt’s life insurance from the insurance company. A claim that was denied, causing her to file a lawsuit before the Logroño court.
He accepted the daughter’s claim and legitimized the insurance claim. A decision that the insurer did not accept, so the case went to the Supreme Court of Justice, which issued a ruling declaring that “from the moment in which the cognitive impairment suffered by the plaintiff completely nullified his ability to understand, preventing him from understanding what he was doing and the consequences of his behavior, It is not possible to blame the attack on his sister.“.
It was not an intentional murder
Due to this, and remembering the provisions of article 92 of the Insurance Contract Law, it forced the insurer to pay compensation of 23,600 euros to his family. According to the CEO and main lawyer of EOM Equipo Jurídico, Manuel Espinosa Ortiz, the explanation behind this sentence is that “the law only deprives you of the right to compensation if you caused the death on purpose and being fully aware of what you are doing.”
Therefore, although León was the one who caused his sister’s death, the Supreme Court understood that “Not even in his mind was the certain and certain realization of the death of the insurednor did it induce the policyholder to enter into the contract.” Precisely, this lack of intentionality at the time of committing the acts was what allowed the family to receive the insurance money.
“If you are not aware, because you have a mental illness, the criminal law does not apply,” explains the lawyer. Therefore, it could not be considered that the death was “intentionally caused”, since for this to be the case, the author would have had to demonstrate consciousness, intentionality and voluntariness when causing death of the victim.