Brian Cox was an employee of the Washington, D.C., law firm of Morgan Lewis & Bockius and a participant in the firm's group accident loss policy. Mr. Cox had named his wife, Joan, as the beneficiary under the policy.

At approximately 10:30 p.m. on Dec. 11, 1997, Mr. and Ms. Cox left a holiday party, where Mr. Cox had been drinking. During their trip home, an argument escalated into a physical assault by Mr. Cox upon his wife. Upon their arrival home, Mr. Cox left the car and his wife drove away, leaving him locked out of the house. Mr. Cox broke the kitchen window to gain entry into his house, and then he went upstairs to bed with a loaded rifle beside him.

Meanwhile, a neighbor had heard breaking glass at the Coxes' residence and called the county police. When the police arrived, they saw the broken kitchen window and suspected a burglary. The officers entered and announced their presence, and found Mr. Cox in bed, apparently asleep. When the officers attempted to stir Mr. Cox, he woke up suddenly, grabbed his gun, and pointed it at one of the officers. When Mr. Cox continued to point his rifle after being ordered to drop it, the police shot and killed him.

Subsequently, Ms. Cox filed a claim for accidental death benefits with the insurance company. The claim was denied, citing a provision in the policy that excluded coverage for a loss arising out of the commission of a felony by the insured.

The question is, was Brian Cox committing a felony when he died?

Sure, he was committing a felony several hours earlier when he assaulted his wife, and that led directly to the later confrontation, but at the time he was asleep, drunk, in his own bed in his own home, when two 'strangers' woke him up. It's pretty hard to blame the cops, though, as they had reason to believe that it was a thief who was pointing a rifle at them.

The district court granted summary judgment in favor of Ms. Cox, concluding that the insurance company had abused its discretion in applying the felony exclusion, and awarded Ms. Cox $250,000 in accidental death benefits. Upon appeal, the Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court's ruling.

In rendering its decision, the Fourth Circuit concluded that no reasonable person could have concluded that Brian Cox knew or had reason to know that the men in his bedroom were law enforcement officers. The evidence indicated that he was asleep until one of the officers touched his foot, and apparently only a few seconds passed between the time he was awakened to the time he was shot. There was insufficient evidence that in those few seconds the officers clearly identified themselves or that the bedroom was lit sufficiently for him to see the officers. It appears that the most he could have learned about the men in his bedroom was that they wanted him to put his rifle down. Because this information was clearly insufficient to give him reason to know that the men in his bedroom were law enforcement officers it cannot be concluded that he was in the commission of a felony.

His surviving wife gets the $250,000.

It's a complicated case that appears to defy common sense, yet within the law and the insurance contract in question, it's the correct decision.