260 S.W. 688 | Tex. App. | 1924
She sued as executrix of the will of the insured and as sole legatee thereunder. There are no findings of fact incorporated in the judgment. There are no findings of fact nor conclusions of law found in the record; neither does the record disclose a request therefor.
The application made by the insured upon which the policy sued on was issued contained, among other provisions, the following:
"That it is expressly agreed to and understood upon my part that this contract is to be null and void and of no binding force whatever, unless my application is received and accepted at the home office of the company and approved by the medical examiner, and the policy of insurance is delivered to me or my beneficiary during my lifetime and while I am in good health."
This application was taken by R. M. Conner, local agent for appellee in Madison county. It contains a statement, signed by said agent, which, so far as the same concerns the payment of premium, is as follows: "Amount collected: Cash $_____ note $_____ total $C. O. D." Said application also contained the following direction: "If policy is issued, send it to R. M. Conner at Madisonville, Texas." The insured submitted to medical examination as required, and said application, together with the report of the physician making such examination, was forwarded to the office of appellee's state manager at Dallas, and received there on February 27, 1920. It was promptly mailed from there to the home office of appellee in Kansas City, Mo., where it was duly considered and approved on March 4, 1920. The policy sued on was written in pursuance of such application on March 6, 1920, but bore the same date as the approval of the application. It was duly registered by the insurance department of the state of Missouri on March 8, 1920. It was then sent to the office of appellee's state manager at Dallas, from whence it was on March 10th mailed to R. M. Conner at Madisonville, where it should have arrived some time in the afternoon of March 11th. It was actually received by Conner, who lived on a rural route out of Madisonville, on March 13, 1920. Said policy contained, among other provisions, the following:
"(1) This policy shall not take effect unless the first premium hereon has been paid and this policy delivered to the applicant within thirty days from the date hereof, or unless the applicant is in good health at the time of its delivery."
"(8) No agent has power on behalf of the company to modify this contract, to extend the time of payment of premiums, to waive any forfeiture, to bind the company by making any promise or any representation, or to deliver any policy, contrary to the provisions of section one (1) hereof. These powers can be exercised only by the president, vice president, secretary or assistant secretary of the company, and will not be delegated. * * *"
"This policy is issued in consideration of the stipulations, agreements and representations made in the application for this policy, a copy of which application is hereto attached and made a part hereof, and said policy and application constitute the entire contract between the parties hereto."
The insured, John W. Hines, did not pay the annual premium to the agent at the time he signed and delivered said application. The agreement between him and Conner concerning the payment of the premium and delivery of the policy, if issued, was, according to appellant's testimony, as follows:
"Mr. Conner agreed to deliver the policy and receive his premium at the Farmers' State Bank. As far as I can remember, Mr. Conner seemed to think it would be perfectly all right. He was to leave the policy at the bank and receive the money for the premium at the bank. The agreement was that he was to leave the policy at the bank for Mr. Hines and get his money at the bank. Mr. Hines was to make arrangements for him to get the money there. Yes, sir; he made such an arrangement. Yes, sir; I know that the money was there for him, and the money has been there since that time for him, and it is there yet. It is there for them now if they will accept."
Such agreement, according to Conner's testimony, was as follows:
"In taking the application from Mr. Hines, I wrote out the contract in regular form and had only one understanding with reference to the premium, and that agreement was that Mr. Hines was to come down and arrange with the officers here at the bank to pay me the *690 premium on the policy when the policy was delivered, and I was to deliver the policy here to the bank, and they were to pay for it. The agreement between me and Mr. Hines was that I was to receive the policy for Mr. Hines, and the policy was to be sent to me, and I agreed to turn it over to the bank for Mr. Hines, and I wrote on the application that it was to be sent direct to me."
The insured was in good health at the time of said application and medical examination. According to appellant's testimony, he took sick with influenza, commonly called "flu," on the 26th or 27th day of February and called his family physician. She further testified that the insured got over the flu and was better and could sit up, and that his physician had dismissed the case; that he was up and about the place from about the 4th to the 6th day of March, inclusive; that on March 6th or 7th he had a chill and fever and developed pneumonia, and died about noon on March 11. She denied that the physician called every day from the time insured took sick, but testified that he stopped in nearly every day as he passed by.
The attending physician testified that when he was first called, about February 29th, he found the insured suffering from cold, pleuritic pains, and fever, and diagnosed the case as influenza; that the usual symptoms of a mild case of flu continued until about the 5th or 6th day, when temperature became normal and so remained until about the 7th or 8th day, when pneumonia developed; that insured died about March 11, 1920; that the immediate cause of death was progressive heart weakness, and that pneumonia, which the patient had had for about three or four days before his death, was the contributing cause: that he made the patient about twelve visits in all. This witness does not testify that he discharged the patient at any time, but treats the time from his first visit to the death of the patient as one continuous period, indicating the different stages by counting the days from his first visit.
Another physician testified that he was called in consultation with the physician attending the insured on or about March 6th, and found him just recovering from influenza and in a very nervous state: that he suspected that insured might develop pneumonia: that in his opinion the death of the insured resulted from after effects of influenza, finally developing into pneumonia.
There were no special instructions given with reference to the delivery of this policy, but the general instructions given by the company to its agents, including Conner, were printed in its rate book, and were as follows:
"Should the health of the applicant become impaired, or anything else come to the knowledge of the agent making the risk undesirable, after the application is written and before actual delivery of the policy, the agent must notify the company of the facts and immediately return the policy to the home office."
The agent Conner, on receipt of the policy, took; it to the bank, as he agreed with insured to do, but, because the insured was then dead, he refused to leave it or to accept the amount of the premium which the bank had instructions to pay him on receipt of the policy. Later he returned the policy to the company.
Appellant does not deny that the insured was ill from February 26th or 27th until about March 3d, inclusive, nor that he was seized with the attack of pneumonia which resulted in his death, not later than March 7th, but she contends he was in good health from March 4th to March 6th, inclusive. She further contends that, under the agreement above stated, Conner was the agent of the insured to receive the policy and to deliver it to the bank. She further contends that under the facts recited the contract of insurance was completed and became binding on the company when the application was approved, and that there was a constructive delivery of the policy when the company placed the same in the mail at Kansas City to be transmitted to its Texas office, and from thence to Conner at Madisonville, and that all the same occurred during the time she claims the insured was in good health.
The finding of the court in favor of appellee being general, every issuable fact must be considered found in its favor if there is any evidence to support such a finding. In passing upon the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain each such finding, we must view the same in the light most favorable thereto, rejecting all evidence favorable to the opposite contention, and considering only the facts and circumstances which tend to sustain such finding. San Antonio Irrigation Co. v. Deutschmann,
Was the insured, on March 4th to 6th, inclusive, in good health within the meaning of that term as used in the application and policy under consideration? "Good health," when so used, does not mean absolute perfection, but is comparative. It means that the insured has no grave, important, or serious disease, and is free from any ailment *691
that seriously affects the general soundness or healthfulness of the system, and mere temporary indisposition which does not tend to weaken or undermine the constitution, though existing at the time of making the application or at the time of receiving the policy, will not be held a breach of such requirement. Whether the insured was in good health at the delivery of the policy is ordinarily a question of fact for the court or a jury trying the case. 3 Cooley's Briefs on Insurance, pp. 2110-2111; 3 Joyce on Insurance, § 2004; Mutual Reserve Fund Life Ass'n v. Bozeman,
We have set out the substance of the evidence on the condition of insured's health during said days during which appellant claims a constructive delivery of the policy took place. We think that the same presents an issue of fact for the determination of the trial court. When such evidence is viewed in the light most favorable to the judgment, as we are required to view it, we cannot say that a finding by the trial court against the contention of appellant on this issue is without support therein.
Was there a constructive delivery of the policy within such time? Appellant on this issue cites and relies on the case of Life Association v. Harris,
"The character of the risk to be assumed in this case was passed upon in accepting the application, and, as the premium had then been paid and accepted, there was nothing to prevent the immediate conclusion of the contract subject to the other condition, that the applicant should be at the date of the policy alive and in good health. Story on Conflict of Laws, § 27 79a; Schwartz v. Insurance Co.,
"In Schwartz v. Insurance Company, supra, the policy containing the same provision as that under consideration was sent by the company to its agent in Minnesota for delivery upon payment of first premium while applicant was alive and in good health, and the agent refused to deliver it because the applicant was sick. It was held that if the agent was authorized by instruction to withhold the policy because of such sickness, the contract did not take effect; but that if it was sent for delivery upon payment of premium with no authority in the agent to retain it because of applicant's condition, the contract became effective upon tender of premium. It necessarily follows that if the premium has been paid when the policy issues, such a provision as this does not hinder its immediate operation."
Appellant also cites and relies on the case of Amarillo National Life Ins. Co. v. Brown (Tex.Civ.App.)
The case of Denton v. Kansas City Life Insurance Co. (Tex.Civ.App.)
The answer to the question under consideration depends upon the correct application of the principles announced in the foregoing decisions to the facts in this case. On this issue, as on the preceding one, we are required to view the evidence in the light most favorable to sustain the judgment, and we have done so in the following review thereof: We think the evidence shows without material conflict that the agreement with the insured was that Conner should deliver the policy at the bank and then and there receive the stipulated premium. Not until the policy was so delivered was Conner entitled to receive the premium nor the bank authorized to pay it to him. So viewing the evidence, we think that the proper construction of Conner's signed statement in the application shows that he had received neither money nor notes for the premium, but that same was to be paid to him in full when, and only when, he delivered the policy to the bank; that no credit for premium was contemplated; that no delivery of the policy in the sense of it passing from the possession and control of the company and its agent and into the possession and control of the bank in behalf of the insured, without payment of the premium, was contemplated; that, on the contrary, the payment of the entire premium in cash on the delivery of the policy was contemplated. It is true that Conner testified that the arrangement by which the payment of the premium was to be made by the bank was satisfactory to him, and that he would have had the policy mailed directly to the insured if the insured had so requested. The fact remains that such was not the agreement actually made, and that he did agree to make an actual delivery of the policy to the bank before he should be entitled to receive the premium, and that the insured agreed that the bank should pay the premium only when the policy was actually delivered to it. While no special instructions to Conner to ascertain the condition of the health of the insured and withhold delivery in the event it had become impaired accompanied the policy, such duty was imposed by his general instructions, which did require him to withhold delivery and return the policy if he found such to be the case, and it was his duty to follow the same, and it seems he did follow the same. He received the policy two days after the death of the insured, and, while he took it to the bank and showed it to the officers thereof, he refused to leave it or to accept the premium but returned it to the company. So viewing the evidence, we think it is sufficient to support a holding by the trial court that the premium was not to be paid until there was an actual manual delivery of the policy by Conner as agent of the company to the bank for the insured, and that such was the kind of delivery contemplated by the parties, and that the contract of insurance was not complete or binding on the company until such payment and delivery were made during the lifetime of the insured and while he was in good health, and that Conner, knowing of the death of the insured, was without authority to make delivery of the policy, and that he merely discharged his duty to the company in refusing to deliver the same. In support of the judgment it is our duty to consider that the court did so find. Life Association v. Harris,
The trial court having found in effect that there was no delivery of the policy sued on in this case, either actual or constructive, appellee never became liable on the same, and judgment was properly rendered in its favor. Wright v. Federal Life Ins. Co. (Tex.Com.App.)
The judgment of the trial court is affirmed.