American Trust & Banking Co. v. Lessly
| Decision Date | 18 June 1937 |
| Citation | 106 S.W.2d 551 |
| Parties | AMERICAN TRUST & BANKING CO. v. LESSLY et al. |
| Court | Tennessee Supreme Court |
Petition denied.
Miller, Miller & Martin, of Chattanooga, for complainant.
C. A. Noone, of Chattanooga, for adult appellants.
Strang, Fletcher & Carriger, of Chattanooga, for Elizabeth Balfour Lessly.
Chas. L. Claunch, of Chattanooga, for James David Keith, Lucile Lessly Miller, and Paisley P. Brown, minors.
The only question presented by this petition for certiorari is whether the proceeds of a policy of insurance against death by accident inures to the benefit of the widow of the insured, free from insured's debts and not assets of his estate under section 8456 of the Code. The chancellor and the Court of Appeals held that the proceeds of such policy did pass to the widow of the insured under the provisions of the section of the Code cited.
This conclusion is challenged. Petitioners rely on the decisions of this court in Lamar Life Insurance Co. v. Culp, 168 Tenn. 332, 78 S.W.(2d) 56, and Interstate Life & Accident Co. v. Hunt, 171 Tenn. ___, 100 S.W.(2d) 987.
In the former case the court held that an applicant for life insurance, when asked to name the companies in which his life was insured, was not required to disclose an accident policy. The court said that a general question concerning other existing life insurance did not call for a disclosure of existing accident insurance. The court was considering the meaning of language used in an application prepared by a life insurance company and merely concluded that the term "life insurance" as there used meant life insurance in its conventional sense, not life insurance in its broad sense.
So in the second case cited the court was construing chapter 457 of the Acts of 1907, an act establishing standard provisions and conditions to be contained in policies of life insurance. An examination of the statute convinced the court that its terms excluded policies of accident insurance.
Section 8456 of the Code is as follows:
"Any life insurance effected by a husband on his own life shall, in case of his death, inure to the benefit of his widow and children; and the money thence arising shall be divided...
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...Ins. Co., Tex.Civ.App., 371 S.W.2d 717. We consider what was said by the Supreme Court of Tennessee in American Trust & Banking Co. v. Lessly, 171 Tenn. 561, 106 S.W.2d 551, 111 A.L.R. 59, as persuasive here, 'In the former case the court held that an applicant for life insurance, when aske......
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In re Thurman, 3:90-1036.
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