19 Mo. 135 | Mo. | 1853
delivered the opinion of the court.
The defendants having given their note to pay the plaintiff the sum of $150, “ in such portions, and at such time or times as the directors of said company may, agreeably to their act of incorporation, require,” several points have been presented in their behalf for the reversal of the judgment, which was given against them for the whole amount of the note.
It is true that, by the second section of the charter, a person effecting insurance with the company continues a member only so long as the policy lasts, but such membership is not a necessary ingredient in the liability of those who have given their notes to the company on becoming members. The notes bind the parties who are makers to pay the money on calls made in pursuance of the charter, and the tenth section of the charter provides that, “ at the expiration of the term of insurance, the note or such part of the same as shall remain unpaid
When we determine that the defendants continue liable upon their note for their proportion of losses happening while their insurance continued, and that assessments for such losses may be made after the expiration of their policy, it follows that they were not entitled to their note, until all the losses for which they were liable were satisfied, and consequently, their tender was upon a condition they had no right to impose,
The 18th section of the charter expressly provides that, upon a failure to pay any assessment upon a note, the whole amount of the note may be recovered in an action upon it, and that the amount thus recovered shall remain in the treasury of the company, subject to the payment of losses that may thereafter accrue, and the balance, if any, shall be returned to the party from whom it was collected, on demand, after thirty days from the term for which insurance was effected. There are several provisions of this charter which appear to be incongruous. It is evidently the design of some of the sections to make every person insuring in the company a partner or member — responsible for his share of losses happening while he was a member, and yet it is plainly within the contemplation of other sections, that his liability should be ascertained and settled within the period of thirty days from the expiration of his policy. We take the chief design of the act to be, to form an association for mutual indemnity, in which each member shall be liable for his proportion of losses happening while he con
The judgment is, with the concurrence of the other judges, affirmed.