Although the New York City medical examiner ruled Heath Ledger’s death an accident, ReliaStar Life Insurance Company has not yet paid the claim on Ledger’s $10 million life insurance policy.
John LaViolette, Ledger’s former attorney and beneficiary, has sued the insurer, claiming the company acted in bad faith by not paying out the policy and has wrongfully pryed into Ledger’s affairs after his death. LaViolette is acting as a trustee for three-year-old Matilda Ledger, daughter of Heath Ledger and his ex-girlfriend and Brokeback Mountain co-star, Michelle Williams.
A representative for ReliaStar told TMZ, “No decision has been made on the claim.”
ReliaStar plans its own investigation of Ledger’s death to determine if it could have been a suicide, in which case the policy’s pay-out would not be honored. After his death on Jan. 22, the New York medical examiner ruled that Ledger died accidentally from the abuse of six kinds of prescription medications.
ReliaStar’s lawyers plan to take depositions from Mary-Kate Olsen, who was the first to be notified of Ledger’s death, and from Diana Lee Wolozin, Ledger’s masseuse, who found the body. Co-stars of Ledger’s last film, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, his agents and his doctors will also be questioned.
The insurance company also claims it can contest Ledger’s policy if he lied on his application, which he completed in June 2007, six months before he died.
According to the suit, ReliaStar contacted LaViolette requesting the names of all of Ledger’s physicians and pharmacies. LaViolette and his lawyers say the company did not seek that information before approving him as a client.
At the time of his death, Ledger’s will (written before Matilda’s birth) named his parents and sisters as his beneficiaries. Last week, Ledger’s family decided Matilda would be the sole heir to the estate.
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