23 Iowa 84 | Iowa | 1867
The “instructions” contain eighty pages of printed matter; one heading of a subdivision thereof, in prominent and heavy type, is as follows: “ Rules to govern AGENTS IN KILLING UP BLANK APPLICATIONS. It ÍS of the greatest importance that applications for insurance should
He also testifies, that he knew Jane Anson was dead, and that it was talked of at the time, and that hé “ told plaintiff, that the property would have tó be insured in her name by plaintiff' as her agent.”
It also appears from the evidence, that at the time of the making of the application, the defendant-had not filed the statements and obtained the certificate of the auditor of State, authorizing the defendant to do business in this State as provided in Revision, section 1750, et seg. About one month after the policy in suit was obtained, the certificate of the auditor of State was filed in the clerk’s office of Marshall county, where the property was situated and the agent resided. This certificate, among other matters, stated that the agent who took the application for the policy in suit, “ had b.een duly appointed by said company their lawful agent for Marshall county, with full power to take risks of insurance thereimP
In view of this proof, we hold that the .fact of making the application and issuing the policy in the name of Jane Anson, will not, of itself, defeat a recovery by the plaintiffs upon the policy, the plaintiffs being tho heirs of Jane Anson deceased, and the owners'of the property at the date of the application, policy and loss. Ayres v. The Hartford Fire Ins. Co., 17 Iowa, 176; Plumb v. Cattaraugus Co. Fire Ins. Co., 18 N. Y. 392; Campbell v. M. & F. Fire Ins. Co., 37 N. H. 35; Hough v. City Fire Ins. Co., 29 Conn. 10.
This was two or three days before the policy was received by the plaintiff. The agent further testified that on the same day he wrote the defendant notifying it of the incumbrance. This letter was mailed at Marshall-town, and would go-by way of Dixon to Freeport, 111., all the way by railroad.
If he is in respect to applications the agent of the company, and not solely the agent of the applicant, then notice to the agent with regard to matters within the scope of his authority, would, on well known principles,
The District Court, in effect, held that the fact that Jane Anson was dead when the policy was issued, and , the false statement in the application as to the incumbrance, notwithstanding the correction, avoided the policy and plaintiffs could not recover. This was error; and, without examining the other questions made by the pleadings and not passed upon by the District Court, we must, for the causes before stated, order the judgment
Reversed.-
July 22,1868.
A petition for a rehearing was filed in this case by the defendant’s counsel, a rehearing was granted, and the cause has béen again fully argued. Although the court is now differently constituted than when the foregoing opinion was announced, . the then chief justice having retired, and Mr. Justice Beck having been elected as his successor, yet we find ourselves fully agreed in the opinion as heretofore announced.
Much of the stress of the re-argument by the defendant’s counsel is upon the limited character of the agent
While it may be true that the agent who' received the application for the policy now in suit, was but-a solicit-; ing agent, and had no authority to issue the policy, yet it will be remembered that while he was in the discharge of the special duty of his limited agency, to wit, talcing the application, he, with a full knowledge of all the facts and of the death of Jane Anson, and that the property had descended to these plaintiffs, directed, as the agent of defendant, and as such agent actually made, the application in the name of Jane Anson. He was the agent of the defendant. This is not controverted. When and for what purpose was he the defendant’s agent? We answer, he was the agent when he was talcing the application, and, he was the agent for the purpose of taking the application. Hence, when he was acting as the agent of defendant, and while discharging the special duty of his agency, he represented to plaintiffs that, in order to properly discharge his agency, that is to take the application according to his instructions, it must be taken in the name of Jane Anson. He was'acting within the scope of. his agency when he made the application as it was made, and upon the plainest principles of law applicable to principal and agent the defendant is concluded by it. It is the same as if the defendant had, upon its own special request, taken the application in the name of, and issued the policy to, Jane Anson, for the benefit of the plaintiffs. They are estopped from setting up her death
In the case of Ayres v. The Hartford Fire Ins. Co. (supra), it was sought to bind the insurance company by knowledge communicated incidentally to the agent (who was only authorized to receive or take the application) long after the policy was issued. Certainly the doctrine of that case can have no just application to this.
It may well be questioned whether in any case it ought to be held that an insurance company may, commission an agent to go out into the community in search of victims' obligating themselves ■ to the company through the agent, while the agent is incapable of being the medium .through which the company is obligated to them. It is, to say the least of it, unfair, and many of the wrongs which courts of justice are made to effectuate are super-induced by the apparent judicial sanction to that unfair and inequitable method of doing business. Whether the wrongs perpetrated under it may not compel courts of justice to wholly deny its legality, we need not now further inquire. The case of this defendant is not within any rule heretofore laid down which will exempt it from liability.