84 Mo. App. 555 | Mo. Ct. App. | 1900
Plaintiff is the beneficiary in a benefit certificate on the life of Anna S. Collins, who died sixteenth of January, 1897, in good standing in the defendant order. This action is for the amount of the policy. The defense is, that the insurance was forfeited by a misrepresentation as to her age made by the assured in her application 'for insurance. There was a verdict and judgment for defendant, from which plaintiff appealed.
It appears from the pleadings, stipulations of parties, and evidence for defendant, that it (defendant) was at the times mentioned in the pleadings, an insurance company on the assessment plan, authorized by law to do business in this state; that the assured died January 16, 1897; that proper proofs of her death were received bydefendant June 1,1897; that more-than ninety days thereafter (or after Sept. 1,1897), this action was begun. On the fifteenth of March, 1897 (Session Acts, page 129), the legislature of this state amended section 5869 of the revision of 1889, so as to subject all corporations insuring on the assessment plan—home or foreign—to certain provisions of the revision applicable to ordinary life insurance business. One of these provisions is_ as follows: “In suits brought upon life policies, heretofore or hereafter issued, no defense based upon misrepresentation in obtaining or securing the same, shall be valid, unless the defendant shall, at or before the trial, deposit in court for the benefit of the plaintiffs, the premiums received on such policies.” This statute is in terms retrospective as well as prospective. If it is a valid enactment, it must therefore invalidate the defense to this action, which was interposed in contravention of its requirements. Under the law