Ætna Casualty & Surety Co. v. Sengel

35 S.W.2d 67, 183 Ark. 151, 1931 Ark. LEXIS 353
CourtSupreme Court of Arkansas
DecidedFebruary 9, 1931
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 35 S.W.2d 67 (Ætna Casualty & Surety Co. v. Sengel) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Arkansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ætna Casualty & Surety Co. v. Sengel, 35 S.W.2d 67, 183 Ark. 151, 1931 Ark. LEXIS 353 (Ark. 1931).

Opinion

Butler, J.

The appellant company insured the appellee against loss by burglary of property in appellee’s safe in its place of business. While the policy was in force, burglars entered appellee’s place of business and feloniously abstracted from said safe a sum of money. The appellant denied liability under the terms of its policy, and this suit was then instituted and the case submitted to the trial court on the policy of insurance and an agreed statement of facts.

The facts necessary for an understanding of the issues and such as are relevant to the question presented are as follows: the safe insured was not a burglar-proof safe and was not so stated in the policy, but was a fireproof safe. It had two doors — the outer door was provided with a combination lock and immediately inside the outer door was a small compartment or chest closed by a door of thin steel and provided with a lock which was manipulated by a key. This inner chest was used as a receptacle for the cash on hand. At the close of the day’s business both the door to the small inside chest and the outer door were closed and securely fastened. During the night burglars entered the appellee’s place of business and secured entrance into the safe through the outer door b3r manipulating the combination thereof so that it was opened without force or violence. Entrance was gained to the inner compartment b3r use of force upon the inner door by some tool directly upon the exterior of same, of which there were visible marks upon the exterior of such inner door, and the cash within the chest was abstracted.

Under insuring clause No. 1 of the policy, the appellee was indemnified for loss by burglary of property designated in “condition R” within the safe, inside or outside of any chest, caused by the abstraction of such property while the safe was closed and locked “after entry into such safe or vault has been effected by force and violence by the use of tools, explosives, electricity, gas, or other chemicals directly upon the exterior thereof, of which force and violence there shall be visible marks.” The .property designated in “condition R,” subdivision (a) thereof, was money and securities “in safe No. 1 inside or outside of any chest.” By “condition B” the appellant provided that, it should not be liable in para-g’raph No. 7 “for loss of property from within any safe containing a chest unless both the safe and chest have been entered in the manner specified in insuring clause No. 1, unless insurance is specifically provided in subdivision (a) or (c) of “condition R,” and by paragraph No. 9 of said “condition B,” “for any loss effected by opening any safe or vault insured hereunder by the use of any key or by the manipulation of any lock. ’ ’

The question for our determination is, did the entry by violence of the door of the inner chest render the appellant company liable under the terms of its policy, although the outer door was opened without the application of any force, 'but by the manipulation of the combination lock?

In numerous cases under provisions insuring against the felonious abstraction of property from safes where the entry into them was effected by the extraneous forcible use of tools or explosives, it is held that such policies cover loss where entry was made into the inner chambers by such means, even though the outer safe was not so entered. These cases are collected in the note in vol. 41 A. L. R. at page 857, and to the same effect is the holding in a case decided by the Supreme Court of Utah, January 5, 1929, Schubach v. American Surety Co. etc., 273 Pac. 974. But in the case of Blank v. National Surety Co., 181 Iowa 648, 165 N. W. 46, L. R. A. 1918B, 562, a contrary rule was announced. In that case it was held that the loss was not covered where the burglary was effected by working the combination of the outer door and breaking into the inner door.

We have examined the various eases noted in 41 A. L. R, supra, and those cited in 181 Iowa, supra, to support the rule there announced, and can find no essential dissimilarity in the insurance clauses in the policies considered in those cases. The arrangement and verbiage in some are different from those in others, but, in our opinion, the clauses, taken as a whole and giving to them a common sense interpretation, have essentially the same meaning; to protect the insured from loss from a forcible felonious entry, where marks of such are visible upon any of the doors through, which entry from the outside was necessary to reach the property insured.

In Blank v. National Surety Co., supra, the court cites in support of the conclusion there reached the case of First National Bank v. Maryland Casualty Co., 162 Cal. 61, 121 Pac. 321, Ann. Cas. 1936, 1170; Maryland Casualty Co. v. Ballard County Bank, 134 Ky. 354, 120 S. W. 301; and Brill v. Metropolitan Surety Co., 113 N. Y. Supp. 476. These cases do not support the broad statement of the Iowa court. In the case of First National Bank v. Maryland Casualty Co., supra, there was a burglar-proof chest inside the outer safe, and the policy provided that force must be used against both. The proof was that tools were used only upon one, while the combination lock was worked on the other. Maryland Casualty Co. v. Ballard County Bank, supra, was a case where an officer of the bank was held up by burglars and forced to open the vault and the safe within the vault was opened by working the combination lock. The court held that the force used upon the officer to compel bim to open the safe was not the force contemplated by the policy. The point decided in the case of Brill v. Metropolitan Surety Co., supra, was that the evidence failed to show “visible” marks of force, but that the reasonable inference was that the outer door was opened by the working of the combination and the inner door by a key.

Typical of those cases -holding that liability is established where entrance is made by force upon the inner door, although the outer door was not forcibly entered, is the case of Moskovitz v. Travelers’ Indemnity Co., decided by the Supreme Court of Minnesota and reported in 144 Minn. 98, 174. N. W. 616. The insurance was against loss by “entry into such safe or vault by actual force and violence, of which force and violence there shall be visible marks made upon such safe or vault by tools, etc.” By another clause in the policy liability was excluded though there was an entry and burglary “unless all vault, safe and chest doors are properly closed and locked by a combination or time lock at the time of the loss or damage; nor if the entry is effected by opening the door of any vault, safe or chest by the use of a key or the manipulation of any lock. ’ ’ The plaintiff sustained a loss by burglary from his safe. There was no actual force used in effecting an entry through the outer' door, but the court held that “liability arises when there is an entry by actual force through the inner door by tools of which there are visible marks, though entrance through the outer door is effected by the manipulation of a lock and no marks of force are upon it. ”

One of the latest cases is that of Schubach v. American Surety Co., supra. The safe in that case had an outside door and an inner door, referred to as a fire-proof door, and in the interior of the safe was a small chest.

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35 S.W.2d 67, 183 Ark. 151, 1931 Ark. LEXIS 353, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/tna-casualty-surety-co-v-sengel-ark-1931.