Etheredge v. Aetna Ins. Co.

86 S.E. 687, 102 S.C. 313, 1915 S.C. LEXIS 214
CourtSupreme Court of South Carolina
DecidedOctober 20, 1915
Docket9216
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 86 S.E. 687 (Etheredge v. Aetna Ins. Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of South Carolina primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Etheredge v. Aetna Ins. Co., 86 S.E. 687, 102 S.C. 313, 1915 S.C. LEXIS 214 (S.C. 1915).

Opinion

The opinion of the Court was delivered by

Mr. Justtck Gags.

History: Verdict for plaintiff for $2,000 on a policy of insurance against loss by fire; policy made 3d July, 1912; covering a brick store at Eeesville; total destruction by fire 7th November, 1912.

The plaintiff, Mrs. Geneva Etheredge, is the wife of the plaintiff, E. B. Etheredge; and the husband is joined as a necessa^ formal party.

When the policy was made the defendant company acted thereabout through its agent, E. J. Etheredge, and the plaintiff, Geneva, acted thereabout through her husband, E. B. Etheredge. The wife of E. J. Etheredge is Mrs. M. B. Etheredge. The men, E. B. and E. J. Etheredge, are only remote kinsmen. The first is a doctor and resides at Wagener, in Aiken county. The second is a dentist, and was a *317 bank president, an insurance agent, and a man of some other activities, and resided at Léesville, in Lexington county.

“The insured” named on the policy, when it was put in evidence, is L. B. Etheredge.

The suggestion of the plaintiff is, that Geneva Etheredge ought to have been named therein, and that in the beginning she was in fact named therein.

The plaintiff, Geneva, alleges also, of course, that she was and is now the sole owner of the property which was insured and which was destroyed.

The contract of insurance provides: “If the interest of the insured be other than unconditional and sole ownership; or if the subject of insurance be a building on ground not owned by the assured in fee simple * * * this entire policy shall be void.”

The answer alleges, that “at the time the policy was written neither the said L. B. Etheredge nor his wife, T. Geneva Etheredge, were 'the owners in fee of the property here in question * * * and are not now the unconditional and sole owners of the said property, and that neither of the said parties had an insurable interest therein.”

That issue and one other which suggests Geneva was not “the insured,” are primary; all other issues are secondary.

The suggestion of the defendant by testimony and by argument is that M. B. Etheredge,'wife of E. J. Etheredge, was the owner of the property. Of the twelve exceptions the appellant has abandoned the 7th, the 9th and the 12th.

The other nine exceptions have been argued under six topics, and we shall pursue that classification, but not in the order which the appellant did, yet we trust comprehensively. These are the topics:

As to pleading: Amendment of the complaint ought not to have been allowed, if the complaint did not before it state a ease.

*318 As to substantive law: Verdict ought to have been directed on the proof as it stood before and after amendment.

As to charge: If the jury find that S. J. was instructed to write the policy in the name of Geneva, and actually so wrote the policy, but afterwards changed the name of L. B. without the knowledge and consent of Geneva, then Geneva would not be bound hereby.

As to refusal to charge: If the deed by Cooley to Geneva in plaintiffs’ claim of title, was never in fact delivered, then the fee remains in E. B., and the plaintiff, Geneva, can’t recover in this action, even though the policy was in her name.

As to competent and incompetent testimony: Policies in other companies ought not to have been admitted; and license from commissioner of insurance ought not to have been admitted; -and copy deed, Geneva to M. B., ought to have been admitted.

As to refusal to charge: You are instructed that there is no evidence of waiver by the defendant, of the written terms of the policy contract.

There is no denial the house was insured, the premium paid and the building burned, but only that the plaintiff, Geneva, did not own it, and had no contract for insurance.

1 1. The kernel of the case was exposed at the end of the testimony, when the defendant moved for a verdict, upon the ground that the proof showed, and only showed, that neither Geneva Etheredge, nor her husband, L. B. Etheredge, had ownership of the property when the policy was made or when the fire happened; and that, therefore, neither of them could recover on a policy made to L. B. Etheredge; and there was no proof that Geneva ever had a contract of insurance with the /Etna.

The plaintiffs have never pretended since suit was brought that E. B. Etheredge had any insurable interest in the prop *319 erty. The complaint alleges, “that he .is the husband of Geneva, and was her agent in securing said insurance.”

It is true that in the letters written before, action was brought by E. E. Asbill, Esq., one of Mrs. Geneva Ether-edge’s attorneys here, it was asserted by him that at the writing of the policy the title was in Mrs. M. B. Etheredge, and that E. B. Etheredge held from her purchase money notes; and, therefore, he had an insurable interest in the house.

It is also true that in a letter written before suit by L. B. Etheredge, to Middleton, the Atlanta agent, it was asserted by the writer that the property had been sold to' M. B. Etheredge, and to better secure the vendors the policy had been made to L. B. Etheredge.

In those letters Mr. Asbill and L. B. Etheredge made an entirely different case from that made by Mrs. Geneva in her pleading and in her testimony at the trial on Circuit.

The Court below clearly had no right to judge betwixt the two cases. If they were inconsistent, and they were, it was the sole province of a jury to determine which was the true case.

It cannot be denied that the evolutions of the title to the house in issue have been unusual, and are not free from challenge.

2 In a contest betwixt legal titles instruments of writing thereabout must often be strictly construed, and that which may be called the real intent of the makers is sometimes defeated.

But this cause does not demand a technical application of the rules of law governing the devolution of land titles. Only a contract is in issue'here. Insurance is well nigh a universal business. The companies seek risks like the commercial travelers. The contracts (not including the printed policies) are written by all sorts of persons, with and without knowledge of land titles; and with the owners of property who have no larger skill about the matter.

*320 Enlightened policy, for the companies and for the public, ought in every case to ascertain, what the real truth is, as far as that is permissible under the rules of law.

And to that end, the character and the capacities of those who engage in the business of writing insurance and of those securing insurance cannot be ignored.

In the instant case the testimony tends to show: That E. J.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
86 S.E. 687, 102 S.C. 313, 1915 S.C. LEXIS 214, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/etheredge-v-aetna-ins-co-sc-1915.