166 Iowa 532 | Iowa | 1914
The first count of the petition is upon a policy of insurance dated December 13, 1901, and numbered 502959, on the life of Sherman E. Hicks, for the sum of $2,000, payable to his wife, Addie M. Hicks; a right to change such beneficiary being reserved to the insured. No change of beneficiary appears ever to have been made or attempted by Hicks, and he died November 29,1911. Due notice and proofs of death were delivered to the company, which refused payment, for reasons hereinafter shown. Plaintiff alleges these facts, and that the policy was in full force and effect at the date of Hicks’ death. She proceeds further to state that on November 15, 1910, all premiums accruing to that date having been paid, Hicks attempted to surrender said policy to defendant, and in consideration thereof defendant paid Hicks the sum of $450.10. These facts she concedes would be a bar to a recovery in this action but for the further fact that from a date prior to said transaction until his death the insured was insane, and utterly incapable of transacting business or making a contract or appreciating the nature or effect of his acts. Plaintiff further concedes that defendant is entitled to credit upon said' policy for the amount of said payment and the amount of premiums becoming due on the policy from November 15,1910, to the date of the death of the insured, November 29,1911, and asks judgment for the remainder of the insurance provided by the policy. This policy, plaintiff alleges, has been assigned by her in her individual capacity to the estate of Sherman E. Hicks, of which she is administrator.
The second count is upon a policy dated March 19, 1896, numbered 344311, on the life of said Sherman E. Hicks, for $1,000, payable to the administrator, executor, or assigns of said deceased. With respect to this policy plaintiff pleads substantially the same alleged facts as are set forth in the first
The defendant admits the policies, admits due payment of the premiums thereon up to November 15,1910, and pleads the fact of the alleged surrender as effecting a complete satisfaction of its obligation and liability on said contract of insurance. It also pleads that plaintiff herself, as beneficiary under the policy first described united in making such surrender, and is thereby estopped to maintain this action. It further alleges that if Hicks were insane, as claimed, defendant had no notice or knowledge thereof, and dealt with the deceased and his wife in good faith and paid them the full surrender value of the contract. Other defenses are pleaded which, so far as they need to be considered upon this appeal, will be stated in the further progress of this opinion.
In reply plaintiff, after denying generally the affirmative defenses pleaded, repleads her allegations that the insured was insane and incompetent to make valid surrender of the poli(fy. In another count she alleges that the writing acknowledging the surrender, of the policy and purporting to bear her signature was obtained by fraud, deceit, and duress. This allegation was afterward withdrawn, and the issue was not submitted to the jury. She also specifically denies having assented to the surrender of the policy, and denies knowledge that such surrender had been made until soon after the death of her husband, when she promptly notified defendant of her refusal to recognize or ratify it.
By demurrer to the reply and motion to transfer the cause to equity, defendant raised the legal questions which are hereinafter considered. Both demurrer and motion were denied, and exceptions duly preserved. The issues were tried to a jury. Considerable evidence was introduced by' the plaintiff; tending to sustain her allegation that Hicks was insane when the surrender of the policy was made, and so continued to his death. There was also evidence tending to support plaintiff’s denial of participation by her in the alleged
I. Counsel have formally assigned many errors, but in their brief they have materially aided the court by grouping all the points on which they rely under two general heads. Of these the first proposition is stated as follows:
The beneficiary, Addie M. Hicks, having joined with the assured, Sherman E. Hicks, in surrendering policy No. 502959 is bound by such surrender, and is estopped now to assert that the assured was at the time of unsound mind, or that any fraud, misrepresentation, or duress was practiced upon her by said assured in inducing her to unite with him in surrendering said policy to the defendant.
With this introductory proposition counsel proceed to build up their argument in the following manner:
(1) That, as the beneficiary named in the policy, plaintiff had a vested property right in the insurance so provided; (2) that, having such vested right, she was competent to waive or surrender the same without the co-operation of her husband
Let us consider these points in the order stated. It will be remembered that, while the policy in this suit names Addie M. Hicks as beneficiary, it reserves the right to her husband
In the Carpenter case, supra, we held that, where the right to change the beneficiary exists, not only does the person named in the policy acquire no property right but no right or interest of any kind which he can assign or transfer to another “until the death of the assured.” If this be true, and the beneficiary obtains no right either vested or contingent, which he can assign or transfer to another until the death of the insured person, it is difficult to understand on what principle Addie M. Hicks can be said to have had any right in the insurance which she could surrender to the company. She was not a party to the insurance contract, nor would she become a party to it until her relation thereto should be fixed by the death of the insured without having appointed a new beneficiary. Indeed, in the absence of any controlling authority for the proposition of counsel upon this feature of the case, we think the courts should be slow to
Nor can we adopt appellant’s view that the insanity of Hicks operated to vest plaintiff with a property right in the policy. No authority is cited to that effect, and we are quite
II. The record does not bear out the appellant’s contention that the execution of the instrument or surrender by plaintiff is admitted, or that the evidence to that effect is con-
I do not think it is my signature. I never signed anything that had this on it. I recall signing some papers. Mr. Hicks told me it was a loan on the insurance company. I never authorized any one else to put my signature there.
Referring to the indorsed names on the company’s check for the surrender value of the policy she said:
It is not my signature and I did not authorize any one else to write it.
I did not see anybody write the name Sherman E. Hicks there. I did not see Mrs. Hicks sign her name on that paper. She never told me it was her name and ask me to witness it. I do not know whether Mrs. Hicks was present at the time I signed it. . . . Mr. Hicks said he had some papers that he wanted Mother and I to sign. ... He said it was concerning his insurance papers, and wanted to have Mother and me to sign it. This took place at our home. Mrs. Hicks was at our home. I don’t think she saw me sign the paper. She was in the dining room. She was in one room and we in another.
Other testimony developed the fact that Hicks held another policy issued by the Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company, upon which he obtained a loan about the time of the surrender of the policy in this case. The note or obligation given for repayment of that loan was produced in evidence by the appellant, and, upon being confronted with it, Mrs. Hicks admitted her signature thereto.
It is true also that the reply, as originally filed, contained a plea in the nature of a confession and avoidance, alleging that the wife’s signature to the instrument of surrender had
But there is another aspect of this case which is worthy of appellant’s attention even on the assumption that the wife had some right or interest in the policy, and that the effect
III. Many of the questions dealt with in argument were eliminated from the case by the charge of the court in which the jury were told that the only question of fact to be decided
That the plaintiff made a clear case for the jury upon the matter of her husband’s mental condition is not open to reasonable question. We do not care to recite the harrowing story of the unfortunate man’s condition resulting from the fearful malady which for several years made his life a continuous nightmare of horrors and weakened his powers of resistance to the demands of an inflamed appetite for drink. Not members of the family alone, but disinterested neighbors, together with physicians who knew and observed his condition, united in testifying to his mental incapacity. No attempt was made by the defendant to weaken the force of this plea by offering the testimony of witnesses, expert or nonexpert, and, so far as this issue is concerned, it must be accepted as settled that Sherman E. Hicks, at the time of the alleged surrender, and
Appellant contends that she is so estopped because, as beneficiary under the policy, she had a vested right in the insurance which she could and did surrender, and because also, by signing the paper with her husband when she knew he was insane, she thereby deceived and misled the defendant to its injury. But, for reasons already stated, there can be no such estoppel in this case. For, assuming, as we must, Hicks’ insanity and the consequent invalidity of the attempted surrender, the contract of insurance between him and the company was left in full force. Upon the death of Hicks the company’s liability to pay became fixed, and the only legitimate question in the case was with respect to the person entitled to receive it. The wife was the only person who had ever been named as beneficiary, and, if by any act on her part during the lifetime of her husband she disqualified herself as such or ceased to be a beneficiary, then, as we have said, the insurance accrued to the benefit of the husband’s estate, and his administrator was entitled to recover it. Nor do we find anything in the record to justify the court or jury in holding that plaintiff by any representation or deceit or misleading conduct induced the defendant to act to its injury. Although the appellant acted in entire good faith and paid a small part of the face of the policy in consideration of the supposed surrender, it still suffers no injury, if, when the insanity of Hicks and the consequent voidable character of the deal is shown, the court so controls the judgment as to restore the parties to their status quo; and this the court below did by giving the
IV. The exceptions taken by appellant to rulings upon its
It is said, however, that plaintiff’s reply taking issue upon the alleged surrender by her is not verified, and she cannot be heard to deny her signature. But she sues as administratrix, and, as such, she is not required to verify her pleadings. Code, section 3586; Ashworth v. Grubbs, 47 Iowa, 353. So, also, as to the effect of Code, section 3640, see Fannon v. Robinson, 10 Iowa, 272; Sully v. Goldsmith, 49 Iowa, 690.
V. The second main proposition in appellant’s brief is that the court erred in refusing to transfer the case to equity. As the case was finally tried and submitted to the jury, there
The further thought of counsel that, the defendant having acted in good faith and without knowledge of Hicks’ incompetency, the plea of insanity cannot be sustained in this case has apparent support in some of the authorities cited from other jurisdictions, but we are committed to the rule that such fact is available to the beneficiary, even though the insurer took the surrender believing the insured in sound mind. See the case last cited and Swartwood v. Chance, 131 Iowa, 714. Indeed, if we eliminate the question whether the wife signed the instrument of surrender with her insane husband, a question we hold not to be of decisive importance, the case before us is practically on all fours with the Nutter case, and, following that precedent, we cannot do otherwise than affirm the judgment below.
It may be added in closing that it is quite doubtful whether the defendant is in any position to question the cor-
The court instructs the jury, as a matter of law, that, unless the plaintiff has proved to the satisfaction of the jury that the assured, Sherman E. Hicks, was of unsound mind on November 18, 1910, and at the time of the surrender by the said Sherman E. Hicks of the policy Exhibit 2, your verdict must be for the defendant; that is to say, unless the testimony has satisfied your minds that at the time of the said surrender that the mental condition of the said Sherman E. Hicks was such that he could not comprehend the nature and*547 effect of the contract of surrender, then your verdict should be in favor of the defendant.
The court did instruct as follows:
Before plaintiff can recover, she must show by a preponderance of the evidence that, at the time the surrender was made and the writings acknowledging the same were executed, the said Sherman E. Hicks was of unsound mind to such an extent as made him incapable of knowing or understanding the nature of what he was doing.
And again:
If the deceased was, at the time of signing the surrender in question, insane, or of unsound mind, and destitute of reason to such an extent as not to know the nature, effect, and consequences thereof, it is void and your verdict should be for the plaintiff.
It will be observed that the instruction asked and the one given differ only in the fact that the latter is stated affirmatively while the former is stated negatively, or, rather, defensively.
It is too well settled to require citation of authorities that there is no reversible error in giving an instruction which is in harmony with one asked by the appellant. As the foregoing ■conclusions are reasonably decisive of the ease and of the appeal, further discussion is unnecessary.
For the reasons stated, the judgment below is — Affirmed.