Municipal Life Ins. Co. v. United Fidelity Life Ins. Co.

170 S.W.2d 814, 1943 Tex. App. LEXIS 306
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedApril 8, 1943
DocketNo. 11481
StatusPublished

This text of 170 S.W.2d 814 (Municipal Life Ins. Co. v. United Fidelity Life Ins. Co.) 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
Municipal Life Ins. Co. v. United Fidelity Life Ins. Co., 170 S.W.2d 814, 1943 Tex. App. LEXIS 306 (Tex. Ct. App. 1943).

Opinion

GRAVES, Justice.

This, in part, is a second presentment of this cause here, the first one having been upon the appellee’s plea of privilege, asking to be sued therein, if at all, in its residential county of Dallas; this court, by opinion reported in 147 S.W.2d at page 288, sustained the venue as laid, in Harris County.

It now comes back on the protest of the appellants (Municipal Life Insurance Company, a local mutual aid insurance association under Texas statutes, H. A. Birkel-back, its president and general manager, B. B. Kirkpatrick, and many other members and policyholders of that association), who had sued for themselves and all other policyholders similarly situated — pursuant to Nos. 39, 40, 41, and 43, Texas Rules of Civil Procedure— against a “take nothing” judgment in its favor on all their claims against the appellee, except for a $2,759.61 liability on the agency contract it admitted to be due appellant Birkelbach.

The court entered such decree by sustaining the appellee’s motion therefor, notwithstanding a previously returned verdict by a jury finding, in substance, in answering special issues submitted, these facts:

“No. 1. The United Company failed to tender to the reinsured policyholders of the Municipal Company a regular form of ordinary life Insurance in such face amount as the premium then being paid to the Municipal Company by its respective policyholders would purchase at the attained age of each such policyholder on the basis of the United Company’s rates applicable to such policyholders under the generally accepted practice of underwriting of comparable risks.

“No. 2. Except for such failure, 90 per cent of the premiums on policies so tendered and accepted would, in all reasonable probability, have been paid to and received by the United Company during the year from October 22, 1939, to October 22, 1940.

“Nos. 3 and 4. Eighty-five per cent of the premiums on policies so tendered and accepted would, in all reasonable probability, have been paid to and received by the United Company for the year from October 22, 1940, to October 22, 1941, and 40 per cent for the 8-year period paid from October 22, 1941, to October 22, 1949.

“No. 5. It was the mutual intention and understanding between United Company and H. A. Birkelback on the other part, that the rates to be charged by it on policies to be issued to policyholders of Municipal Company were such premium rates as were charged for ordinary life insurance in its regular department.

“No. 6. If the United Company had tendered to each and every policyholder listed on Exhibit A attached to the reinsurance contract ordinary life insurance policies for the full face value of the policies of such members then in force and effect with the Municipal Company at the rates being paid by such policyholders to the Municipal, 95 per cent of the business covered by such reinsurance contract would have been kept in force and effect in the United for the year October 22, 1939, to October 22, 1940, 90 per cent of the premiums contracted to the Municipal thereon would have been paid to United Company thereon for the year of October 22, 1940, to October 22, 1941, and an average of 68 per cent per year for the succeeding 8-year period.”

The suit was one for varying amounts of money recoveries or compensations by different ones of the appellants, respective[816]*816ly, against the appellee, for the alleged “repudiation” by it of two different contracts in writing between the parties, the one a re-insurance agreement between the two insurance concerns (evidenced by formal document of October 21 of 1939, together with an amendatory letter of October 24, 1939), the other an incidental general agency engagement between the ap-pellee and appellant Birkelbach individually, which by its own terms had been made subject to the former; copies of all three documents are hereto appended, as Exhibits A, B, and C, respectively.

Under attending averments that these two writings were interdependent, should be construed together, and that the declared upon repudiation of the re-insurance undertaking amounted — ipso facto and perforce ■ — -to a like scrapping of the general agency one also, the brief of all the appellants thus characterizes the' nature of the proceedings, the resulting trial of which, they urged, had entitled them to the relief they so sought by a judgment to that effect on the verdict of the jury:

“This is not an action by beneficiaries under policy or policies of insurance alleging a breach of the terms of the insurance policies, and the failure of the insurer to perform according to the terms of such policies, but is an action (1) by Birkelbach predicated upon the repudiation, not only of the re-insurance agreement, but of Birkelbach’s agency contract, which by its own terms was make subject to such reinsurance agreement.

“(2) This is an action by policyholders for the repudiation of such re-insurance contract and the repudiation of the terms of the insurance policies held by them, respectively, the insurer’s obligation of which had been assumed by United, which obligations, once assumed by United, it had not right to change or alter in any manner whatsoever.”

“We, therefore, most earnestly submit that this was an action for breach and repudiation of contract of re-insurance and the re-insurance certificates issued by United to the various policyholders of the Municipal, that United’s attempt to re-rate such policyholders and to cut down the face of their policies, to write them in its “Intermediate Department”, where its rates were far higher than those charged by it for regular old line ordinary life insurance, was a repudiation of said insurance policies assumed by it, was a repudiation of its reinsurance certificates, and a repudiation and breach of the re-insurance agreement.”

As indicated, the trial court, while initially having submitted the special issues to the jury on the view that they embodied material issues of fact (and- all of them) raised by the pleadings and evidence, later decided rather that the conclusive or undisputed evidence had developed that no issue of fact remained, that the appellee had been shown to have complied in all respects with its legal obligations under both contracts, hence had been entitled to the judgment non obstante veredicto so awarded it.

So that, the parties come on appeal with substantially the same several positions they thus asserted below, and this court, after a review of the record, concludes that the correctness or not of the judgment so rendered, in final analysis, turns upon the interpretation that should be given the reinsurance contract between the two companies, and especially paragraph 3 thereof; indeed, that the controlling question the appeal presents, in determining whether or not the appellee “repudiated” or breached either of the contracts involved, is whether or not such Section 3 should be given the above-quoted meaning appellants contend for, as against that the appellee insists upon, the trial court having adopted the latter in granting the appellee’s motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict.

This court is constrained to hold such action to have been correct, and that, as the appellee’s counter-points in its brief present, these considerations require the construction so given that crucial provision of the contract, to-wit:

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Bluebook (online)
170 S.W.2d 814, 1943 Tex. App. LEXIS 306, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/municipal-life-ins-co-v-united-fidelity-life-ins-co-texapp-1943.