Muckler v. Guarantee Fund Life Ass'n

208 N.W. 787, 50 S.D. 140, 1926 S.D. LEXIS 325
CourtSouth Dakota Supreme Court
DecidedMay 5, 1926
DocketFile No. 5304
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 208 N.W. 787 (Muckler v. Guarantee Fund Life Ass'n) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering South Dakota Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Muckler v. Guarantee Fund Life Ass'n, 208 N.W. 787, 50 S.D. 140, 1926 S.D. LEXIS 325 (S.D. 1926).

Opinion

BURCH, C.

This 'action is brought by plaintiff, beneficiary in a life insurance policy written by defendant upon the life of Frederick- Muckier, to recover the amount of said policy. Trial was to a jury. Verdict was returned for plaintiff, and judgment rendered thereon. Prom the judgment and order denying a new’ trial defendant has appealed.

The policy was issued on the 6th day of July, 1918, and Frederick Muckier died| on the 14th of October, 1920. Two yearly premium payments were made, but, the third premium not having been paid on July 6, 1920, or within one month, the period of grace, the policy lapsed according to its terms on the 6th of August, 1920. On the 12th of October, 1920, two days before the death of insured, steps -were taken to reinstate the policy. The policy is not unusual in form. It provides that failure to make payment of premiums on or before due forfeits the insurance without action on the part of the company, but provides also that the insured is entitled to grace of one month within which to make payment of such premium, after it matures, during which month the insurance shall continue in force, and further provides:

“This policy may be reinstated, after default in payment of premiums, upon proof of good health, temperate habits, and approved occupation, all of which must be satisfactory to the association, and the payment of all arrearages with interest at the rate of six per cent per annum.”

There is evidence that appellant’s state agent went to. the home of insured, and there met respondent, and took up with her the matter of reinstating her husband's policy; that respondent [143]*143had an application for reinstatement which had been signed by her husband a day or two before, but which had not been sent in to the company because of insufficient money to make the payment required; that appellant’s agent told respondent that a note might be given, and, as she was beneficiary under the policy, the note would be accepted from her without her husband’s signature; that she thereupon gave her note and the application to said agent, and' the note and application were sent to the company by the agent. Before the application was acted upon and the note accepted by the company, insured was killed by a Holstein bull, and on notice of this fact the company returned the note and refused to reinr state the policy. There was also evidence that the agent told respondent that the insurance would be in effect at midnight following the acceptance of the application by him. Much of this proof was admitted over the objection of appellant on the ground that it was an attempt to show a waiver of the terms of the policy which the agent had no power to make, and which was hot within the issues because not pleaded.

Appellant’s objection and the several assignments of error based thereon are made upon the assumption that respondent cannot recover without proof of a waiver of the terms of the policy. Appellant argues that no waiver can be proved unless pleaded, and that the company’s state agent had no authority to waive any provision of the policy. Conceding this, respondent says:

“The complaint was framed upon the theory that the policy never ’ceased, terminated, or became nonexistent’; that, if lapsed, the same was by its own terms and conditions subject to be revived and reinstated as of its original force and effect, and' that it was therefore sufficient to allege the then existing efficacy of the insurance policy. In other words, though the insurer’s liability under the policy had been interrupted and suspended, the assured’s right to reinstate it, provided by the terms of the insurance contract, remained intact, and the policy having in accordance with its provisions been reinstated thereunder, was in fact in full force and effect.”

The position thus taken by respondent makes it unnecessary to decide the questions presented by those assignments concerning a waiver. Respondent argues that there is reserved to assured [144]*144the absolute right to revive his dormant policy as a part of the contract upon the conditions specified, to wit, good health, temperate habits, and approved occupation, which, if certified in the application for reinstatement, and in fact then existing, automatically revives and reinstates the merely dormant policy. We think respondent is right in this interpretation of the-insurance contract. The provisions of the policies considered1 in the case of Prudential Insurance Co. v. Union Trust Co., 105 N. E. 505, 56 Ind. App. 418, are so similar as to make that case peculiarly applicable here. It was there contended that, because the applications for revival of the policies was not received at the insurance company’s home office prior to the death of the insured, there was no revival, and could be no revival, of insurance on the life of a person already dead. The Indiana court said:

“The failure of the insured to pay the premiums as they became due did not work a forfeiture of his insurance. * * * During such period the insured had inchoate insurance which he might, at any time, ripen or revive by a performance of the conditions of 'his contract; and, when such conditions were complied with by the insured, while in life, and within the period stipulated, it was not within the power of appellant, under its contract, to arbitrarily refuse to renew or revive such insurance. It is true the contract required the insured to furnish with his application to revive, evidence of his insurability satisfactory to appellant, * * * but such provisions furnished no ground for arbitrary refusal to> revive when the conditions of the policies had once been fully and' completely complied with, and appellant’s approval or disapproval of the proof furnished, whenever made, was necessarily required to rest on the facts and conditions existing at the time of the attempted revival, and such approval or disapproval related back to that time. If at. that time the insured had failed in any substantial particular to compfy with the conditions of his contract, or if any valid objection then existed to the form or substance of the application to revive, or if the proof of insurability as then furnished did not meet the requirements of such contract, or was false, or for any other reason was subject to a valid objection, appellant’s contract permitted it to reject such application to revive, and such rejection would relate back to the date of such application. On the other hand, if at the time of the filing of such [145]*145application to revive,.and the signing and delivery of the necessary papers accompanying it, there then existed no valid objection to the form or substance of such application, or papers or the proof furnished therewith, appellant, under its contract, could do but one thing, viz., revive the policy, and such revival would relate back to the time of the application to revive; and the mere fact that the! insured, after he had fully complied with the conditions of his .contract, died from a cause in no way involved in his proof of insurability which accompanied his revival of application, but wholly the result of accident, could- in and of itself furnish no valid ground or excuse for a refusal by 'appellant to revive such policies.” ' •!='

See, also, Leonard v. Prudential Insurance Co., 107 N. W. 646, 128 Wis. 348, 116 Am. St. Rep. 50; Davidson v. Old People’s Mutual, etc., Soc., 39 N. W. 803, 39 Minn. 303, 1 L. R. A. 482; Officer v. N. Y. Life Ins. Co., 216 P. 253, 73 Colo. 495. In the last cited case the Colorado court says:

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Republic Life Ins. Co. v. Craige
1940 OK 48 (Supreme Court of Oklahoma, 1940)
Untitled Texas Attorney General Opinion
Texas Attorney General Reports, 1939
Sullivan v. Beneficial Life Ins. Co.
64 P.2d 351 (Utah Supreme Court, 1937)
Harrison v. Philadelphia Life Ins
19 Ohio Law. Abs. 631 (Ohio Court of Appeals, 1935)
Burchfield v. Home Benefit Ass'n
73 S.W.2d 559 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1934)
Ballard v. Beneficial Life Ins. Co.
21 P.2d 847 (Utah Supreme Court, 1933)
Rocky Mount Savings & Trust Co. v. Ætna Life Insurance
160 S.E. 831 (Supreme Court of North Carolina, 1931)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
208 N.W. 787, 50 S.D. 140, 1926 S.D. LEXIS 325, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/muckler-v-guarantee-fund-life-assn-sd-1926.