Opinion
CIV. NO. AMD 02-2440
June 9, 2003
MEMORANDUM
This is an interpleader action arising under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, as amended, 29 U.S.C. § 1001 et seq., ("ERISA"), which was removed from state court. The disputants are three claimants to the proceeds of a death benefit payable in consequence of the death in a motor vehicle accident of Milton T. Ruark. Discovery has concluded and now pending is the plaintiff's motion for summary judgment, to which oppositions have been filed by the competing claimants. I have carefully reviewed the parties' submissions, and no hearing is necessary. Local Rule 105.6 (D.Md. 2001). For the reasons stated below, I shall grant plaintiffs motion for summary judgment and declare that plaintiff is entitled to the disputed payments.
The facts are simple, straightforward and not genuinely disputed. The decedent, Milton Ruark ("Milton"), was a participant in The Boilermaker-Blacksmith National Pension Trust, an ERISA-covered pension plan, through his employment. Plaintiff, Michael Ruark ("Michael"), who is Milton's son, was the sole beneficiary named by Milton under the pension plan. Milton and Michael lived together in a home purchased by Milton in Wicomico. County, Maryland. The residence was titled in the names of Milton and Michael as joint tenants.
On the evening of September 25, 2000, Milton and Michael visited several bars in Wicomico. County and each became intoxicated. Later in the evening, Milton was driving a motor vehicle in which Michael was a passenger when Milton struck another vehicle. The occupants of the two vehicles (including Milton and Michael) got out of their vehicles and a furious physical confrontation ensued. During the fight, Michael suffered a severe bite to his earlobe. Milton and Michael returned to their vehicle and, with Michael now driving, sped away from the scene of the fracas. While speeding away from the scene, Michael lost control of the vehicle, left the road, and hit a tree. Milton died as a result of injuries he suffered in the accident. Subsequently, Michael pled guilty in the Circuit Court for Wicomico. County to "homicide by motor vehicle" and received a sentence of five years incarceration. Michael affirms in his affidavit that he did not "intentionally run his car off the road and into a tree," but that his father's death "was an accident." Michael expects to be released from prison in November 2003.
Michael affirms that he is serving a sentence of five years. As the maximum sentence for "homicide by motor vehicle" is three years, see Md. Code Anno., Crim. Law, sec. 2-506 (formerly Art. 27, § 388A), it is apparent, as suggested in the affidavits of Sandra Hall and Peggy A. Washburn, that Michael is serving a sentence for more than the one offense of "homicide by motor vehicle" based on his guilty plea. The parties have not submitted any documents from the criminal proceedings.
The trustees of the Trust declined to pay the death benefits to Michael, apparently invoking the common law "slayer's rule," pursuant to which "a `person who kills another' may not `collect the proceeds as a beneficiary under a policy of insurance on the decedent's life when the homicide is felonious and intentional.'" Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Pritchett, 843 F. Supp. 1006, 1008 (D.Md. 1994) (quoting Ford v. Ford, 307 Md. 105, 111 (1986). Michael filed suit in the Circuit Court for Wicomico. County against the Trustees, and the Trustees removed the case, on the basis of the complete preemption doctrine, as a claim governed by federal law under ERISA. Thereafter, the Trustees filed a countercomplaint in interpleader, joining as additional defendants on the counterclaim the sisters of Milton Ruark, Sandra Hall and Peggy A. Washburn, who reside in Virginia.
There exists a divergence of opinion as to whether federal common law under ERISA recognizes the "slayer's rule," see Addison v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., 5 F. Supp.2d 392 (W.D.Va. 1998) (recognizing that federal common law includes "the slayer's rule"), or whether, instead, the "slayer's rule" recognized by the various states at common law (or by statutory enactment) simply survives as non-preempted, see Administrative Committee for the H.E.B. Inv. and Retirement Plan v. Harris, 217 F. Supp.2d 759 (E.D.Tex. 2002) (recognizing that state law "slayer's rule" is not preempted). I need not resolve this question, however, because the parties agree that whether state law or federal law applies, the dispute here is limited solely to the issue of whether there exists a genuine dispute of material fact as to whether Michael had the "intent to kill" Milton in the accident.
Sandra Hall and Peggy A. Washburn have submitted identical affidavits in which they undertake to suggest that, because of his allegedly impecuniousness at the time of the accident in which Milton suffered his fatal injuries, Michael might have had a motive to kill Milton. This fantastic speculation is woefully insufficient to generate a genuine dispute of material fact as to whether Milton died as a result of an intentional killing. To the contrary, the facts of record are undisputed: Milton died as a result of Michael's negligent (indeed, drunken) operation of a motor vehicle in an effort to escape the scene of a fight which arose as a result of Milton's operation of the same motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol. In short, there is not a scintilla of evidence in this record that Michael intended to kill his father, even though he intentionally drank alcohol and thereafter intentionally drove the motor vehicle. See Moore v. State Farm Life Ins. Co., 878 S.W.2d 946 (Tenn. 1994) (holding that beneficiary-husband who pled guilty to vehicular homicide for causing death of wife in motor vehicle accident was not barred by slayer's rule from receiving life insurance proceeds; no intentional killing shown); see also Schifanelli v. Wallace, 271 Md. 177, 188 (1974) (noting that even gross negligence in causing death does not effect a forfeiture). Accordingly, Michael, the only named beneficiary of the death proceeds under the Trust, has not forfeited his entitlement to the periodic payments owed by the Trustees.