A 3rd District judge has shot down a legal bid by a robber's widow to collect on his life insurance after he was killed while committing a crime.
Steven Zachary Murdock and an accomplice beat a Sandy movie theater manager in an April 1996 robbery outside a bank.His accomplice got away with the money, but Murdock lost his life when the theater manager, Richard S. Moser, ran over the fleeing robber.
Murdock's widow, Marilyn, filed a claim with Monumental Life Insurance Co. The insurer, however, refused to pay benefits, citing a "felony exclusion" in the policy the Murdocks bought.
The exclusion denies benefits if the insured's death stems from the commission of an assault or a felony.
On Aug. 5, Judge Sheila McCleve endorsed the insurer's position.
"As a matter of law, (Murdock's) death arose out of his felonious conduct because Mr. Moser's immediate chase of his attackers in flight was a natural and probable consequence of their brutal robbery of him," the judge ruled.
On April 23, 1996, Moser, 36, West Jordan, was making the night deposit when two men, armed with a handgun and stun gun, beat him up and took the deposit bag.
Moser climbed into his Ford van and chased the robbers into a construction area, where he hoped to block the getaway in a pickup truck parked there.
The man with the money escaped and has yet to be arrested.
According to police reports, Moser admitted to running over Murdock in the pursuit. But in an affidavit filed in the insurance case, Moser said he did not know until later that he had run over one of the bandits.
Salt Lake County prosecutors cleared Moser of criminal liability after concluding that he lost control of the van in the debris-littered construction area when he accidentally drove over Murdock.
Marilyn Murdock's attorney, G. Eric Nielson, argued that the felony exclusion should not apply in the insurance case because the crime was over by the time Murdock was killed.
Nielson, who is also litigating a wrongful-death case against Moser and his employer, said the Utah Supreme Court is "extraordinarily hostile" to the idea of insurance companies depriving innocent beneficiaries because the insureds are allegedly doing something wrong.
Monumental's lawyers scoffed at these arguments.