16 S.D. 606 | S.D. | 1903
The record in this action on a promissory note resulting in findings of fact favorable to the defendant, and a judgment accordingly entered, discloses, among other facts, the following: On the 26th day of September, 1901, an authorized agent of the Germania Live Stock Insurance Company, by means of grossly false and fraudulent representations, upon which the defendant relied, procured his signature in two places to a one-paged instrument, purporting to be, an application for insurance in such corporation, by which the applicant was to be indemnified in the sum of $1,000 against loss arising at any time within five years by reason of the death of a certain stallion therein described. As a part of this application for insurance, and toward the bottom of the sheet containing the same, and just below the first signature of the defendant. and a delicately perforated line, extending entirely across the page, and closely resembling a number of dotted lines above there was, in printing, writing, and figures, the promissory note in suit, signed by the defendant, and thereafter detached at the perforated line without his acquiesence, knowledge, or
The Germania Live Stock Insurance Company, named in the note as payee, was a corporation organized pursuant to chapter 71, p. 201, Laws 1897, under the provisions of which it possessed no power to insure live stock against any loss other than that occasioned by fire; lightning, hail, tornadoes, cyclones and hurricanes; and in this instance there was an attempt to insure generally against death from any cause, in an amount tenfold greater than that authorized. Section 8 of the act prohibits the insurance of property in any incorporated city or village, and expressly declares that all notes taken as evidence of indebtedness for unpaid assessments shall be in all cases nonnegotiable. When the application was written, and continuously thereafter, the stallion was kept in the incorporated village of Hartford, and that part of the paper involved in this action was taken in the form of a negotiable promissory
The judgment appealed from is affirmed.