154 A. 168 | Conn. | 1931
The commissioner made an award in favor of the plaintiff against both his employer and the insurance company which is prosecuting the appeal to this court. No question is made but that the plaintiff on June 4th, 1929, suffered a compensable injury arising out of and in the course of his employment. The appeal is taken by the respondent company upon the ground that at the time of the injury no insurance was in effect which made it responsible for the payment of the award. The employer had had a policy issued by the company but there had been some controversy between them as to the premium due upon it. Just before that policy expired, the appellant issued another to him. The statute, a copy of which is given in the footnote,* then as now required that every insurance company writing compensation insurance should report to the board of compensation commissioners all policies issued by it. General Statutes, § 5291. Accordingly the agent who issued the policy sent to the commissioner for the *130 first district a card which stated the name of the respondent employer, the date of the issuance of the policy and the date when it became effective, October 11th, 1928, and when it expired, October 11th, 1929. The employer did not want the renewal policy and claimed that he had lost it and finally an agent of the appellant took from him a lost policy receipt, which stated that he did not want it, that it was lost, that he was surrendering it and that it was presumed to be cancelled as of the date of issue. The time when this receipt was taken does not directly appear in the finding, but it does appear that the cancellation of the policy was noted in the files of the agent who issued it as of November 23, 1928. These files also state that a notice of cancellation was that day mailed to the commissioner for the first district, but the files of the commissioner's office disclose that no such notice was ever filed there. The company claims that the policy was not in force when the plaintiff suffered the injury because no policy had ever come into existence between the appellant and the employer and because if it had, it had been effectively cancelled.
Inasmuch as the employer had not in any way made application for the policy, it would of course have to be accepted by him before it would become effective as a binding contract between him and the appellant.Rogers v. Charter Oak Life Ins. Co.,
There is no error.
In this opinion the other judges concurred.