Boston Ins. Co. v. Rainwater

197 S.W.2d 118, 1946 Tex. App. LEXIS 569
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedOctober 7, 1946
DocketNo. 5742.
StatusPublished
Cited by34 cases

This text of 197 S.W.2d 118 (Boston Ins. Co. v. Rainwater) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Boston Ins. Co. v. Rainwater, 197 S.W.2d 118, 1946 Tex. App. LEXIS 569 (Tex. Ct. App. 1946).

Opinion

PITTS, Chief Justice.

Appellees, Clarence Rainwater and Bass S. King, filed suit against Boston Insurance Company, hereafter referred to as appellant or insurer, and T. E. Davis to recover on a fire insurance policy issued by the insurer through Davis and his agency to cover a gin and machinery used in connection therewith located in Wilbarger County which gin burned about five o’clock a. m. on February 15, 1945. Continental Gin Company of Dallas, the Waggoner National Bank, and Mrs. Mary Mildred Warlick, joined pro forma by her husband, O. T. Warlick, were made party defendants because appellees were indebted to them and they each held a mortgage on the gin property. They will be hereafter referred to as mortgagees or lienholders. However, the policy did not show the Waggoner National Bank to be a mortgagee and appellees asked that the loss payable clause in the policy be reformed so as to show and include the said bank as a lienholder.

Appellant denied liability under the terms of the policy on the grounds that ap-pellees had breached warranties inserted in the policy in their failures to keep a night watchman on duty and in permitting baled cotton to be stored on a platform attached to the gin house in violation of the provisions of the application and the terms of the policy. Davis answered and adopted appellant’s answers in so far as they applied to him.

The case was tried before the court without a jury and judgment was rendered for appellees and against appellant for $12,974.73 with interest thereon at the rate of six per cent per annum from March 3,'1945, until paid. The judgment reformed the loss payable clause in the policy so as to include the Waggoner National Bank as a mortgagee and adjudged to each of the mortgagees the amounts according to their respective interest. The trial court denied any recovery against T. E. Davis. Appellant excepted to the judgment and perfected an appeal to this Court. Appellees excepted to that part of the judgment denying them any recovery against Davis and perfected an appeal to this Court on that issue alone.

The record is lengthy and appellant presents sixty-two points of error but we shall pass upon them in the order that seems most logical to us.

The record reveals that T. E. Davis had operated an insurance agency at Vernon under the name of the Davis Agency for a number of years and had been writing the insurance for appellees on their gin for a number of years; that Mrs. Melba Ruth Tabor had been working in the office of the Davis Agency for fifteen years, was then the office manager and familiar with the business generally, and that J. M. Napier was an agent for Davis and as such agent took the application of appellee,. Bass S. King, on July 18, 1944, for the-insurance in question; that there is nothing in the application which would disclose any limitation upon the agent’s authority; that the application bears a certificate signed by T. E. Davis in which certificate he says he has known the ap-. plicant twenty years; that he personally inspected the gin plant on July 15, 1944; that the buildings were clean and the premises free from weeds or rubbish; that the doors and windows were in good: condition; that the risk had never been, refused for insurance within his knowledge; that there was only one other gin-. *121 within three miles of the risk; that he had reviewed the application and believed the questions were properly answered. Among other things the application shows appellees indebted to the Continental Gin Company, Dallas, and to Mrs. Mary Mildred Warlick, Vernon, and that the policy would contain a loss payable clause in their favor; that baled cotton would be kept or stored on the yard and not in attached workhouse or on attached platform and that a night watchman would be kept during operating season or during regular season. The record further reveals that in due time appellant issued the policy and sent it to T. E. Davis who countersigned it and it was sent to the Continental Gin Company at Dallas without appellees seeing it until after the fire.

At the request of appellant the trial court made lengthy findings and conclusions and made additional findings and conclusions at the request of appellant but declined to make some as requested by appellant. These will be referred to if and when they appear to be material.

Appellant charges in effect in the first and second points of error that the trial court erred in finding, without sufficient evidence to support it, that T. E. Davis and; his employees were familiar with the manner in which appellees operated their gin and with the various indebtedness against the gin secured by liens and that King told Napier when the application was written that the Waggoner National Bank of Vernon had a debt and lien against the gin property.

To test the sufficiency of the evidence to determine if it will support the trial court’s findings, we must give credence only to the evidence and circumstances favorable to the findings and disregard all evidence and circumstances to the contrary. Cartwright v. Canode, 106 Tex. 502, 507, 171 S.W. 696; Underwood v. Security Life & Annuity Co. of America, 108 Tex. 381, 194 S.W. 585; Pennsylvania Fire Ins. Co. v. W. T. Waggoner Estate, Tex Civ.App., 41 S.W.2d 340; Hulsey v. Patterson, Tex.Civ.App., 121 S.W.2d 509; and Alexander Marketing Co. y. Medford, Tex.Civ.App., 170 S.W.2d 809.

It is likewise the rule that the findings of the trial judge where there is no jury will not be disturbed by an appellate court where there is some evidence of probative force to support the findings,' even though the evidence is conflicting and the Court of Civil Appeals might have reached a different conclusion. It is also a well settled rule that a trial court’s findings of fact will be upheld unless they are manifestly erroneous and they will be overruled only when they are without any evidence to support them or where they are so against the great weight and preponderance of the evidence as to be manifestly wrong. Leonard v. Smith, Tex.Civ.App., 186 S.W.2d 284; Custer v. McGough, Tex.Civ.App., 184 S.W.2d 668; Gossett, Banking Commissioner, v. Green, Tex.Civ.App., 153 S.W.2d 500; Belstrom v. Belstrom, Tex.Civ.App., 144 S.W.2d 614, and numerous other authorities.

King testified that Napier asked him when the application was signed about the indebtedness against the gin property and he told him the Continental Gin Company of Dallas, Mr. and Mrs. O. T. Warlick of Vernon,- and the Waggoner National Bank of Vernon held liens against the property and he wanted Napier to protect them and Napier said he would. King further testified that the Davis Agency had been writing the insurance annually on the gin for thirteen or fourteen years; that Davis and Napier had stopped by the gin once or twice every season and inspected the same. T. E. Davis testified that he had been writing ' insurance on the gin for five or six years and probably longer and that he had visited- and inspected the gin through the years.

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Bluebook (online)
197 S.W.2d 118, 1946 Tex. App. LEXIS 569, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/boston-ins-co-v-rainwater-texapp-1946.