Accidents Will Happen 1938

Eric Gregg [Ronald Reagan] is an insurance investigator whose avaricious wife, Nona Gregg [Sheila Bromley], keeps pushing him to bring home more money. After he solves a case and earns a promised raise, Nona becomes a witness in a car crash connected to a claim against his company, and her testimony clashes with other witnesses at the scene. Later, Eric discovers Nona wearing an extremely expensive fur coat bought on credit; he learns she paid it off with help from Thurston [Addison Richards], the head of the loan company who collaborates with a ring of criminals who prey on insurance firms. Soon after, Eric loses his job when a rival, Dawson [Anderson Lawler], exposes the fraud.

Eric and Patricia Carmody [Gloria Blondell], a cigarette girl, begin pulling insurance scams of their own, drawing the attention of the other criminals who decide to amalgamate their business with his. Eric rises in the operation, gaining control over bigger schemes, and tells the ring that their small jobs—about $2,000 per case—are insignificant next to what they can accomplish. He then details a large scam in which Patricia pretends to have suffered a permanent spinal injury after a drunk driver.

At the meeting to discuss the plan, he encounters Nona, who is working with Thurston, and they reveal plans to be married. The scheme unfolds as planned, and a lawsuit for $25,000 is filed. At the trial, while pretending to be paralyzed, Patricia suddenly stands up and reveals that she is part of a criminal ring. Eric then takes the stand and explains that he has been part of an undercover operation to expose all of the insurance fraud, and that he and Patricia have been working for the State’s Attorney.

Nona and Thurston are arrested in the courtroom, and as Eric and Patricia embrace, his old boss apologizes for firing him and offers him his old job back with a raise.