167 Wis. 63 | Wis. | 1918
The contentions of the appellant on this appeal involve the rights of the parties to the action under sec. 29 of the workmen’s compensation act of Illinois, set out
We have not been favored with any decision of the courts of Illinois dealing with this statute and the question in-volvéd here. It is manifest from the provisions of the act that the legislature intended that the legal rights of the employee or his personal representative arising from acts of negligence of other persons than the employer proximately causing the employee damages should not be affected by the
Another aspect of the case is presented by the fact that the insurance carried by plaintiff in the Ben Eranklin Mutual
“We . . . hold that such a policy is an investment contract giving to the owner or beneficiary an absolute right, independent of the right against any third party responsible for the injury covered by the policy; . . . that in the absence;of a feature expressly making the policy of insurance an indemnity contract, it should not be regarded as such, but held to be an investment contract in which the only parties concerned are the insurer and the assured or the beneficiary.’j
In Suttles v. Railway M. Asso. 156 App. Div. 435, 141 N. Y. Supp. 1024, it is held that such insurance contracts are not contracts of indemnity only, and that the right, of subrogation as contended for by the defendants here does not apply. McAdow v. K. C. W. R. Co. 96 Kan. 423, 151 Pac. 1113. See, also, note to the Galziueiler Case, supra in 18 L. R. A. n. s. 211.
It follows upon the foregoing considerations that the plaintiff is the proper party to prosecute this action under the Illinois compensation act and that it can enforce the rights of the personal representative of the injured employee against the defendants under the facts and circumstances stated in the pleadings,, and that the trial court erred in overruling the plaintiff’s demurrer to the part of the defendants’ answer embraced in the demurrer.
By the Court. — The order appealed from is reversed, and the cause remanded to the circuit court with directions to enter an order to sustain the plaintiff’s demurrer to the paragraph numbered “I” of 'the defendants’ answer to the amended complaint.