Seems this is pretty popular these days...and with the ladies too!?
Shocking! ZZZZZZZZZOT :-)
I'm an embedded systems guy, maybe this could be a lucrative sideline....Lol, nah...
Posted on 04/21/2012 12:45:48 PM PDT by Free ThinkerNY
A widow has won a bitter victory — her husband’s death by electrocution to the genitals has to be revisited by their insurance company.
Paul Martin, 35, was found lying naked from the waist down in his upstate basement in December 2008 after hooking himself up to an electrical contraption made of purple wire with a bare loop on one end.
“The other purple wire ‘handle’ end was held in the victim’s hand, and the center ‘live’ wire appeared to be a possible switch, which was held in his other hand,” said a police report.
Widow Amanda Martin sued The Hartford life-insurance company after it denied her claim for accidental-death benefits because it said her hubby, an electrical engineer, died from “a deliberate act on his part.”
A federal judge in Rochester sided with The Hartford and pulled the plug on Amanda’s suit last year.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Bodie: He said he didn’t feel like it. And I said, you’d better! And he said, or what? And I said, or else you’re gonna be in trouble. And he said jam it.
Professor Hathaway: That’s a wonderful story, Bodie. I noticed you’ve stopped stuttering.
Bodie: I’ve been giving myself shock treatments.
Professor Hathaway: Up the voltage.
-Real Genius(1986)
I think there IS a more undignified way to go...
Christmas already? “Chestnuts roasting on an open wire”
Everyone knows death by erectocution is not a covered event.
Shocking! ZZZZZZZZZOT :-)
I'm an embedded systems guy, maybe this could be a lucrative sideline....Lol, nah...
Did he get a Darwin award?
Yeah, permanently....
I’m unclear as to what the wife should be embarrassed about. She was not the one playing around in the basement. Perhaps you think she went knowingly into a relationship in which her life partner preferred painful electric shocks to female companionship. Odds are she didn’t. Men w this type of foible are very good at covering it up. He would not have mentioned, when he proposed, that she would be a lonely wife while he pushed the envelope in his solo ventures.
This woman likely had a rough time of it, whether she ever found out [prior to his death] why he shunned the marriage bed or not. If Hollywood ever made a movie about this type of man he would be funny and fun to be around [what perversion has Hollywood ever not loved?]. In real life they’re horrible partners, as the wife probably learned the hard way.
I don’t understand the thinking on this thread. This woman almost certainly endured a lousy marriage. Her husband’s ‘hobby’ resulted in his death, which as many have pointed out is not the desired result of these autoerotic obsessions. Why should she be penalized all over again, just because she married a screwed up man? Short of a crystal ball, there’s just no way to know w certitude what the spouse is going to be like, and that is just a fact.
When I was an ambulance medic, I actually had such an ambulance call. The deceased was in the basement dressed in a bra and panties and had shocked himself to death using an old fashioned electronic tube tester and wires attached to his nipples. The coroner also ruled this was an accidental death. I felt very sorry for the teenage son who discovered the body.
I don’t doubt that you are right about the situation she found herself in.
However, I just could not imagine telling people my husband’s cause of death, much less pushing a lawsuit over it.
OTOH, if I was in a marriage in such rough shape, maybe I would do the same thing.
The lawsuit is about $. A policy was paid into that didn’t exclude accidental death, regardless of how the accident came about. In typically dysfunctional relationships, not a lot of provision is made against such eventualities. I.e.: the man was not planning to die, and probably made no other financial provision for his survivor/s than the ins. policy. The wife probably needs the money for a variety of compelling obligations. I.e.: she isn’t pursuing the policy for publicity, but because she’s desperate to pay bills, mortgage and/or other items.
Spark imagination and a lot of balls whut could go wrong.
Various rockers who choked on their own vomit
An extremely overweight singer who choked to death on a hero sandwich
Dying while on the toilet, pants around ankles
Several deaths by drowning, whether it's falling off a boat at sea or passing out in the tub at home
Autoerotic strangulation gone wrong
Never got a concensus on which circumstance was most embarassing for those left behind, but this seems to be a contender.
My husband and his country cousins as young boys, would always challenge the city cousins who came out to the farm to a pi$$ing contest..to see who could hit the (electric) fence with a stream. Of course the city cousins always won and were proud of being champs.
Some folks are just dumb.
He was an electrical engineer. Therefore the insurance company could have refused to pay on grounds that it was an intentional suicide.
To require them to pay in such a case defies logic. If a “licensed gun expert”, died while allegedly “cleaning” a handgun, with the bullet entering his right temple and leaving through his left, the assumption must be that he knew what he was doing and intended to commit suicide.
In this case, in that he *might* have been trying to sexually stimulate himself does not overcome his learned knowledge that to do so *that way* could likely be lethal.
And insurance companies have long be excused from paying claims based on suicide.
I know it’s easy to roast perfectly good tubes if the voltage settings aren’t correct. Do you recall the make and model? Hickock made some of the best.
While a tube may test “weak”, it can still work OK in circuit. Similarly, a tube that tests “good” may not. The best test of a tube is whether or not it works in the equipment.
Just be thankful you were never the wife of a man w a serious sexual perversion. It’s no coincidence that a man who is fascinated w/obseessed by the auto-eroticism of applying electrical jolts to his genitals would become an electrical engineer. On top of which, neither of us knows how well off or desperately in need this man left his wife, or if there are children involved. [I didn’t read the article. Did it specifically mention children as survivors?]
It would be great if there was some kind of premarital test to reveal deep-seated sexual perversions. A lot of agony could be avoided thereby. People who harbor these fundamental disorders are nothing if not brilliant at covering them up. It would be fascinating to find out if or even when [prior to his death] the wife found out about her husband’s ‘hobby’. Sometimes if the revelation comes post-children, the wife will try to stick it out for their sakes. It’s a sad, hard, no-win situation.
While ultimately sympathetic to the wife, and possible children, the issue remains, are they so sympathetic that you are willing to give them $80,000 of your own money?
This is what The Hartford Insurance Company’s underwriters are being asked to do.
Thus my argument is that Insurers need some way to avoid paying off on “illegitimate” insurance claims, no matter how sympathetic the survivors. Otherwise it is “free money” to all the “puppies and kittens” out there, *at the expense* of those with “legitimate” claims, as well as those whose premiums are increased to pay for kindness to others.
Well, each of us can claim agreement with at least one federal judge. I doubt the case will be appealed, because by now, the expense of the case already probably exceeds the original judgment.
The Hartford does not want the legal precedent, so they might appeal, but the widow will likely not get any amount of money after the lawyers bills.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.