108 Me. 401 | Me. | 1911
It is a firmly established legal doctrine that if a plaintiff in an action on a policy of fire insurance falsely and knowingly inserts in his sworn proof of loss, any articles as burned which were not burned, or knowingly puts such a false and excessive valuation on single articles or on the whole property as displays a reckless disregard of truth, he cannot recover. His own fraudulent acts prohibit it. Dolloff v. Ins. Co., 82 Maine, 266; Rovinsky v. Ins. Co., 100 Maine, 112.
The plaintiffs were proprietors of a country store at North Perry in the county of Washington, a rural community in which this was the only store and in which a saw mill giving employment to about thirty-five men was the only industry. About six o’clock on the morning of October 18th, 1909, smoke was discovered issuing from the roof of the building which the proprietors had left a few minutes before, and a few neighbors with the entire force from the mill rushed to the rescue, and while some were engaged in putting out the fire which seemed to be in the partition near the chimney, the rest employed themselves in removing the goods and fixtures from the lower story of the building. After working for an hour or more they thought the fire had been quenched and all the men left. But it broke out again shortly after and before it could be arrested the building with the remaining contents burned. The total insurance on the goods was $2500, one-half of which was in the defendant company.
The plaintiffs claimed in their proof of loss that the total sound value of all the goods was $3496.87, and of the goods saved $224.10, leaving a net loss of $3272.77. This claim they reiterate at the trial leaving no opportunity for error or misjudgment, and the only plaintiff who testified further claimed that he had thought of other goods which were omitted from his schedule, amounting to $800 or $1000 more, the largest part of which was down stairs and destroyed. This would make a total claim of nearly $4500, of which only $224.10 was saved, or as he put it in another form only one thirty-second part was taken out, although he admits that the entire stock amounted in May, 1899, to only $2500, and the invoices of goods bought for six months prior to October, 1909, aggregated less than $2400.
It is conceded that the size of the store was 24 by 36 feet, with two stories, the lower, the store proper having a .heightTof about
If the value of these goods was, as claimed by the plaintiffs’ witness, $1500, the value placed upon them by the plaintiffs as $224.10 is so low as in itself to substantiate the claim of fraudulent undervaluation which is as fatal in goods saved as fraudulent overvaluation is in goods lost.
It is therefore
Held, that the proof of loss is so clearly false and fraudulent that the plaintiffs’ right of recovery was thereby forfeited.
Motion sustained.
Verdict set aside.