Kendig

Appellant, the widow of Wiley SoRelle Kendig, sued the United States and the mother of .Kendig to recover on a $10,000 National Service Life Insurance policy, her claim to be the beneficiary _ thereof having been rejected by the Veterans Administration and that of the mother recognized. At the close of plaintiff’s case the court directed the jury to return a verdict for the defendants. The question on the appeal is whether there was enough evidence of a change of beneficiary to require submission of the cause to the jury.

Kendig entered the Navy as an aviation cadet and shortly took out the insurance, designating his mother as beneficiary. He. was then unmarried. After receiving his commission as an officer and after a period of flying duty he returned on leave to his. home in Phoeniz, Arizona, where on November 29, 1943, he married appellant who had been his sweetheart while both were in college. Kendig tool? appellant to his station at Norfolk and later to Atlantic City, New Jersey, where on March 23, 1944, he was killed in a plane crash. Hi’s wife was pregnant at the time of his death. Shortly before his death Kendig told appellant that he had changed the beneficiary of his…