99 Neb. 828 | Neb. | 1916
Tbe plaintiffs bought of Nichols & Shepard Company, at its office in Lincoln, a threshing machine outfit. The machine was shipped to them at Adams, Nebraska, and received there about the 23d of June, 1913. The agreement was that the machine should be paid for by a note
It appears that Miss Sherman, the bookkeeper of the Nichols & Shepard Company, was the authorized agent of the defendant insurance company to take applications for insurance upon threshing machines sold by the Nichols & Shepard Company, and to forward those applications to the defendant insurance company. The papers with the application for insurance were received at the bank about the 23d day of June, 1913, and very soon thereafter all of the plaintiffs, who were all of -the purchasers of the threshing machine interested in the insurance, except two, signed the application. The evidence fairly shows that these two also signed the application as early as the 15th of July. The fire occurred on the 26th of July, and the bank, being notified of the destruction of the property by fire, immediately forwarded the application to Miss Sherman, the company’s agent. She filled the blanks in the application correctly describing the property, and also filled other blanks, and forwarded the application to the defendant company. The company returned the application, denying any liability because the application had not been approved and no policy had been issued. It is not
A similar case was recently decided by the supreme court of Iowa. That court in quite an exhaustive opinion held the insurance company liable under very similar conditions. In that case the agent of the insurance company told the applicant for insurance that the notes given for the insurance would be returned if tire application was rejected. The applicant then called upon the company’s physician and was examined, and was informed that he had passed a satisfactory examination. The company’s agent had been in the habit of calling on the physician for the
The trial court, as a reason for the decision, stated upon the record that “Mr. Abbott (officer of the bank) had all his dealings with Nichols & Shepard Company until after the fire; he didn’t know anything about this woman (the agent) at all until after the fire, and, as far as I can see, this woman did not have anything to do with this thing until after the fire.” This refers to the fact that the letter in which the application was sent to the bank by Miss Sherman included also the papers between plaintiffs and the Nichols & Shepard Company and purported to be written by the latter named company. This reason does not appear
The judgment of the district court is rever sed. and the cause remanded for further proceedings.
Reversed.