State ex rel. Leach v. Fishback

140 P. 387, 79 Wash. 290
CourtWashington Supreme Court
DecidedApril 27, 1914
DocketNo. 11746
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 140 P. 387 (State ex rel. Leach v. Fishback) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Washington Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State ex rel. Leach v. Fishback, 140 P. 387, 79 Wash. 290 (Wash. 1914).

Opinion

Mount, J.

This is an application for a peremptory writ of mandate, to the insurance commissioner of this state, to issue a license to the Northwestern Fire and Marine Insurance Company, a corporation of the state of Minnesota, up-, on its compliance with the requirements of the insurance code of Washington, other than the deposit of securities, as required by 3 Rem. & Bal. Code, § 6059-24.

It appears from the petition that the Northwestern Fire and Marine Insurance Company is a stock company of the state of Minnesota. This company was incorporated several years prior to the adoption of the insurance code of this state, but did not apply for a license to do business in this [292]*292state until after the adoption of the code. The laws of the state of Minnesota, where the insurance company was incorporated, make no requirements as to the deposit of securities by such corporations, either foreign or domestic. Upon an application for a license to do business in this state, the same was refused by the insurance commissioner unless the insurance company would deposit securities to the amount of $200,000 with the state treasurer of Washington. A petition was thereupon filed in this court praying for the writ.

The insurance code, 3 Rem. & Bal. Code, § 6059-22, provides :

“Each alien insurance company admitted to do business in this state, shall not transact any business of insurance in this state, unless it shall have within the United States deposited with insurance departments, or held in trust as hereinafter provided, not less than two hundred thousand dollars invested in like manner as the capital of a similar domestic insurance company is required to be invested; . . .
“That no alien company, except co-operative life and fraternal beneficiary insurance companies, shall transact any business of insurance in this state, unless, if it transact fire insurance in this state, it has deposited with the proper insurance department or legal custodian of such deposit in this or any other state or states or district of the United States, for the benefit and security of its policy-holders in the United States, a sum not less than two hundred thousand dollars, invested as in this act required; or if it transact in this state one or more of the other kinds of insurance business permitted by the provisions of this act to be transacted by any such company, it has deposited with the insurance department or legal custodian for like purposes, such amount as may be required of domestic insurance companies doing the same kind of business. . . .”

Section 6059-24 provides:

“Every foreign insurance company doing business in this state and required by this act to have a cash capital, shall deposit and keep on deposit with the state treasurer, through the office of the insurance commissioner of this state, the same amount and character of securities which a like domestic [293]*293company is required to deposit with the depositary for securities of insurance companies of the state by which laws such insurance company is incorporated.
“When any state shall require insurance companies of other states to deposit with some officer of such other state securities in trust for policy holders of such company as a prerequisite to their transacting business in such state, the treasurer of this state shall receive on deposit from any domestic insurance company the securities required by the laws of such other state.
“Every domestic insurance company required by this act to deposit securities to the amount as provided by this act shall deposit such securities with the state treasurer, and any domestic insurance company may deposit such securities with the state treasurer for the protection of all policy holders of such company. Every domestic insurance company hereafter organized shall deposit with the state treasurer authorized securities in the sum of fifty thousand dollars at or prior to the time it receives a certificate of authority to commence effecting insurance, and the commissioner shall within one year thereafter require such company to make further deposits of such securities sufficient to equal in the aggregate the amount of the minimum capital required by this act of such company.
“Every insurance company, required by this act to have a cash capital, shall, on or before the first day of January, nineteen hundred and twelve, deposit and keep on deposit, with the state treasurer through the office of the commissioner, its funds and securities equal in amount and value to the minimum cash capital required by this act of such company, and which deposits shall be exchanged for investments authorized as provided by this act.”

It is apparently conceded by the relator that, if the last paragraph of § 6059-24 ábove quoted is properly a part of that section, the writ must be denied. But it is argued that this paragraph is not properly a part of the statute, because it was inserted and passed by the legislature through mistake and inadvertence. It is contended that this paragraph is in conflict with the first two paragraphs of § 6059-24 above quoted, and so being, it must be disregarded.

[294]*294We are referred to the house and senate journals of the legislature of the session of 1911, when the act was passed, to show that the first three paragraphs of this section were inserted by amendment and were intended to take the place of the fourth paragraph. There is, no doubt, some ground for the contention of the relator upon this question, and if § 6059-24 stood alone, it might be necessary to enter into a discussion of the method by which this paragraph was passed by the legislature. In State ex rel. Aetna Life Ins. Co. v. Schively, 68 Wash. 503, 123 Pac. 784, we said:

“Where the act as passed contains an ambiguity, either latent or patent, reference may be had to the history of the bill before the legislature, beyond the enrolled bill, to ascertain the legislative intent (Scouten v. Whatcom, 33 Wash. 273, 74 Pac. 389, but the intent of an act fair on its face must be ascertained from the language of the act itself.”

By reading the act as a whole, in so far as it relates to the right of foreign companies to do business in this, state, it seems plain to us that the legislature intended that alien insurance companies are required to deposit with the insurance department of this state or the state where the company is incorporated, not less than $200,000 invested in like manner as the capital of similar domestic insurance companies is required to be invested, and that the fourth paragraph of § 6059-24 is simply a restatement in another form of that idea, and fixes the time when the deposit shall be made. The first two paragraphs of § 6059-24 are reciprocal in their nature, and provide, in substance, that the same amount and character of securities which a like domestic company of this state is required to deposit with the depositaries, of other states shall be deposited in this state by insurance companies organized in other states. We are satisfied that it was not the intention of the legislature, when it inserted these provisions, to permit foreign companies to do business in this state under more favorable conditions than domestic companies of the same kind were permitted to do business. If so, [295]

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
140 P. 387, 79 Wash. 290, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-ex-rel-leach-v-fishback-wash-1914.