26 A.D.2d 517 | N.Y. App. Div. | 1966
Order and judgment affirmed, with $50 costs and disbursements to plaintiff-respondent. The insurance policy issued by the defendant, as is apparent from the provisions thereof construed as a whole, was issued principally to afford plaintiff workmen’s compensation and employers’ liability coverage with respect to all employees of the plaintiff engaged in “shipwright work”. The plaintiff, at the time of the issuance of the policy, had many employees engaged in such work with an estimated payroll of $600,000 and had only one employee, a tugboat captain, with an estimated payroll of $2,500, engaged in maritime work (as a master and member of a crew of a vessel). The endorsements, attached to the policy and forming a part thereof at the time of delivery, are to he read with the policy and, except as otherwise expressly and clearly stated therein, are to be given full force and effect according to the intendment of the policy, construed as a whole. (Birnbaum v. Jamestown Mut. Ins. Co., 298 N. Y. 305; also 29 N. Y. Jur., Insurance, § 603.) Endorsement No. 3 to the policy, insofar as it expands the liability limits where more than one employee is injured in a single accident, would be virtually meaningless in the furnishing of proper protection for the plaintiff, if restricted in its application, as stated in its heading, to “Masters or Members of the Crews of Vessels”. In any event, by a typewritten statement at the foot of the endorsement, the description of the operations to which the amended coverage is applicable, is expressly stated to be “Shipwright Work and operation of Tugboats”. This typewritten statement should prevail in a determination as to the effect to be given the endorsement. (29 N. Y. Jur., Insurance, § 614; Birnbaum v. Jamestown Mut. Ins. Co., supra.) It is plain to see that this is a case where the defendant used one of its stock or printed forms of endorsement and expressly broadened it by the typewritten addendum to render it applicable to the particular coverage embraced by the policy. The defendant’s arguments seek