130 Ga. 8 | Ga. | 1908
The facts of this ease may be thus summarized: Collins was the owner of a ginning outfit, as well as a boiler and engine and appurtenances. The ginning outfit had been purchased from the Liddell Company, and that company had retained title to secure the purchase-money. The boiler and engine had been purchased from the E. D. Cole Manufacturing Company, and that company- had retained title to secure the payment of the purchase-money. The policy of insurance was issued with full knowledge on the part of the insurance company that such was the condition of the title. When the first policy was issued there was a provision in the policy that the loss should be payable to the companies above referred to, as their interests might appear. This clause was, by mistake, omitted from the policy when it was renewed. The evidence established the fact that this was due to a mistake, and it is conceded that the ease is to be treated as if such clause had been duly attached to the policy. Subsequently to the issuance of the policy Collins gave the Liddell Company a mortgage on his interest in the boiler and engine. The insurance company pleaded that the execution and delivery of this mortgage was a breach of that provision in the policy which declares that the same “shall be void if the subject of insurance be personal property and be or become .incumbered by a chattel mortgage.”
Policies of fire insurance often contain a stipulation that if there be a sale of the property or a change of interest in the same, or an alteration of the same, the policy will be void. A condition in a policy-,, that the policy “shall be void if the subject of insurance be personal property and be or become incumbered by a chattel mortgage,” is a reasonable requirement; and when the insured accepts a policy with this condition in it,- and commits a breach of the condition, he can not recover in case the property is destroyed by fire. Alston v. Phenix Ins. Co., 100 Ga. 287 (27 S. E. 981). It is the contention of the defendant in’ error that the giving of the mortgage to the Liddell Company on the boiler and
But the defendant in error contends, that the language of the loss-payable clause implies more than a power of appointment to receive the money in case of loss; that it is equivalent to the insurer’s assent to subsequent encumbrances to the same appointees. One to whom a policy is thus made payable is not an assignee thereof, and must claim in the right of the party insured, and not in his own. Bates v. Equitable Ins. Co., 10 Wall. 38 (19 L. ed. 882) ; Hale v. Mechanics Ins. Co., 6 Gray, 169, and cases cited in note to this case in 66 Am. Dec. 413. The direction as to the payment of the money should loss occur during the existence of the policy contract does not remotely suggest a waiver of any condition in the policy. The insurer only assents to the nomination of another to receive what may be due the insured under the policy. The words “as his interest may appear” only serve to limit the appointee’s recovery. If his interest be less than the amount due on the policy, he could not recover from the insurer, over the insured’s objection, the excess over his debt. These words will estop the insurance company from insisting that the exact nature or amount of thq appointee’s interest was not' stated in its
Judgment reversed.