Condon v. National Surety Corp.

22 A.D.2d 305, 254 N.Y.S.2d 620, 1964 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 2452
CourtAppellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York
DecidedDecember 22, 1964
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 22 A.D.2d 305 (Condon v. National Surety Corp.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Condon v. National Surety Corp., 22 A.D.2d 305, 254 N.Y.S.2d 620, 1964 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 2452 (N.Y. Ct. App. 1964).

Opinions

Witmer, J.

From a judgment in the sum of $278,044.91 in favor of plaintiffs as .successors to Faroll & Co., brokers (hereinafter referred to as Faroll) against the defendant, National Surety Corporation (National), entered February 25, 1964, both parties appeal upon several grounds. Because of our conclusion that the judgment must be reversed and the complaint dismissed upon the ground that .subdivision (g) of section 1 of the bond upon which the action is founded excludes coverage for the transactions out of which this action grew, we do not reach the points urged by plaintiffs for increasing the amount of the judgment nor the other grounds for reversal asserted by defendant National.

It appears that at all times here involved Faroll, a .stock brokerage firm, had two Broker Blanket Bond Insurance policies, each in the .sum of $250,000 issued to it by National. It was' provided in said policies that

THE FOREGOING AGREEMENT IS SUBJECT TO THE FOLLOWING CONDITIONS AND LIMITATIONS:

Section 1. This Bond Does Not Cover:
* # #
“ (g) Any loss resulting directly or indirectly from trading, with or without the knowledge of the Insured, in the name of the Insured or otherwise, whether or not represented by any indebtedness or balance shown to be due the Insured on any customer’s account, actual or fictitious, except when covered under Insuring Clause (A), (D) or (E).”

■The excepted insuring clauses referred to above are, (A), for loss through dishonest acts of employees; (D), for loss through forgery; and (E), for loss through acts with respect to securities which have been forged or stolen, etc. Such exceptions are not applicable in this case.

[307]*307Faroll’s loss arose in the following manner: One Gould, in Canada, acquired the stock of G corporation by improperly using and exhausting most of its assets and drastically reducing the real value of such stock. Through a few small transactions he gained the confidence of Faroll. lie then telephoned Faroll and advised it that he had several clients (naming them) who wished to sell good stocks of specified American corporations at specified prices, or better, having a value of several hundred thousands of dollars, and he also asked Faroll to buy for said clients more than 140,000 shares of the stock of C corporation at market prices. He assured Faroll that he would forward to it promptly the stocks to be sold. In reliance upon Gould’,s honesty and good faith Faroll immediately began selling the specified stocks in said Amereian corporations without having received the certificates of the shares from Gould; and Faroll also began buying the shares of G stock at market prices with its own funds, with the expectation that Gould and his clients would reimburse Faroll and upon the assumed security of the proceeds to be received upon the sale of the American stocks. As Faroll bought the C stock, Gould, through friends or dummies and brokers, fed his O stock into the market and was paid therefor.

After a few days, when Gould failed to deliver to Faroll the certificates of stock in the American corporations to cover the sales thereof, Faroll learned that it had been defrauded. It “went into the market” and bought the necessary shares to cover what had turned out to be “ short ’ ’ sales of the American stocks. Finding that neither Gould nor his alleged clients wanted or could pay for the 0 stock which Faroll had purchased for them, Faroll sold it at a great loss. In this action plaintiffs, as successors to Faroll, asked the defendant National to cover the loss thus sustained. National declines to oblige in this respect, and among other defenses asserts that Faroll sustained the loss through “ trading ”, which is expressly excluded from coverage under the policy, subdivision (g) of section 1 above quoted.

Plaintiffs contend that the foregoing transactions, procured by Gould’s fraud, did not amount to “trading”. They take the position that in executing the orders for Gould they were , merely acting as his agent and were not engaged in buying or selling in any fair sense, and that they had no intention of buying or selling such stocks on their own behalf, so as to amount to “ trading ”. On the other hand, National takes the position that the clause excluding coverage for trading losses [308]*308was inserted precisely to avoid responsibility by the surety for what occurred in this case — action by a.broker without credit investigation and without first obtaining the certificates of stock to be sold, or advance payment by the client for the stock to be purchased; that the type of bond issued in this ease is not designed to save the broker from the need to investigate and exercise due care concerning the honesty and financial stability of its customers. National contends that to adopt plaintiffs’ interpretation of the term ‘ ‘ trading ’ ’ in the exclusionary clause of the bond would virtually make it a guarantor of the good faith and financial soundness of every customer of its insured brokers; that it did not intend to and did not contract to assume the risk which plaintiffs seek to place upon it; and that plaintiffs have not paid a premium for protection from such risk.

For upwards of 35 years various courts in this country have uniformly held that activities such as Faroll engaged in herein constitute trading ’ ’ within the meaning of the exclusionary clause of the policy, subdivision (g) of section 1, or similar provisions. The Supreme Court of Massachusetts made such holding in 1927. (Harris v. National Sur. Co., 258 Mass. 353.) Later in the same year this court made a like determination. (Kean v. Maryland Cas. Co., 221 App. Div. 184, 191, affd. 248 N. Y. 534.) In 1934 two similar holdings were made in California. (Earl v. Fidelity & Deposit Co., 138 Cal. App. 435, 440; and Rath v. Indemnity Ins. Co., 2 Cal. App. [2d] 637.) In Degener v. Hartford Acc. & Ind. Co. (92 F. 2d 959, 960 [1937]) the court affirmed on another ground after quoting with seeming approval from the opinion below by the District Judge as follows: “ The word ‘ trading, ’ as used, means the operation of the usual occupation of buying and selling stocks. In this connection it must not be forgotten that a stockbroker differs from the ordinary broker who is merely a conduit between buyer and seller. The stockbroker buys the stock with his own money, thereby becoming a creditor of the buyer as well as a trustee of the stock. The loss of plaintiffs resulted from trading—a fictitious trading and without the knowledge of the insured, it is true, but still the trading contemplated by the bond. ’ ’

In Paddleford v. Fidelity & Cas. Co. of N. Y. (100 F. 2d 606, 610-611 [1938]) the court held that the fraudulently induced brokerage transactions constituted “ trading ” within the terms of the policy provisions, but on another ground found that the plaintiff was protected by the policy.

In Roth v. Maryland Cas. Co. (209 F. 2d 371 [1954]) the court disapproved of the other ground upon which the Paddle-[309]*309ford case (supra), was decided, but the court held that the broker’s acts constitute “ trading ” within the exclusionary clause of the policy, and at page 374 the court referred with approval to the opinion of the District Judge quoted in the Degener case (supra).

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22 A.D.2d 305, 254 N.Y.S.2d 620, 1964 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 2452, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/condon-v-national-surety-corp-nyappdiv-1964.