American United Life Ins. Co. v. Blackhurst

• Decision Date: 18 January 1940
• Docket Number: No. 11514.,11514.
• Citation: 108 F.2d 674
• Parties: AMERICAN UNITED LIFE INS. CO. v. BLACKHURST et al.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

108 F.2d 674 (1940)

AMERICAN UNITED LIFE INS. CO. v. BLACKHURST et al.

No. 11514.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

January 18, 1940.

James W. Broaddus, of Kansas City, Mo. (Robert A. Adams and G. W. Humphrey, both of Kansas City, Mo., on the brief), for appellant.

Paul S. Kelly and Hale Houts, both of Kansas City, Mo., for appellee Julia S. Blackhurst.

Before STONE, SANBORN, and THOMAS, Circuit Judges.

SANBORN, Circuit Judge.

Julia S. Blackhurst is the daughter and sole heir at law of Louis A. Simons, who died January 6, 1933, and who, for many years prior to his death, had been the General Agent in Kansas City, Missouri, of the American Central Life Insurance Company, now the American United Life Insurance Company. As a third-party beneficiary under a "life service bond" or agreement between her father and the Company, providing for renewal commissions to be paid to him or his beneficiary on life insurance written by his agency, she brought this suit to recover commissions alleged to be due her. The case was tried to the court upon an agreed statement of facts. From a decree for the plaintiff, the defendant Company has appealed.

The controversy is over the liability of the Company to the plaintiff for renewal commissions on life insurance written by the agency of Louis A. Simons during the last year of his life, the second year's premiums on which were not paid during his lifetime, but were paid after his death. The Company contends that such insurance, by the terms of the "life service bond", was not to be used in computing the amount of renewal commissions due the plaintiff as beneficiary.

The first paragraph of the "life service bond" provided as follows: "The American Central Life Insurance Company of Indianapolis, Indiana, hereinafter called the Company, intending, by special rewards continued during the agent's life, to promote the placing on its books of persistent insurance, agrees in appointing you its agent, that additional to the usual compensation by commission hereinafter specified, it will, so long as you work for it and for no other life insurance company, pay to you, and in the event of your death while working for it and for no other life insurance company, will for a period equal to the period of your service, for it, pay to your beneficiary, twelve and one-half dollars at the end of each month of which there is in force fifty thousand dollars of its insurance (paid-up and extended insurance excluded) secured by you directly through agents appointed at your instance and paid for in cash through the second year and twenty-five cents at the same time for each additional thousand dollars of such insurance then in force, * * *."

The District Court, in construing this provision, upon which this controversy turns, said:

"A literal reading of the bond requires the company to pay stipulated amounts to the beneficiary at the end of each month if there is insurance in force which was (a) secured by Simons and (b) which was paid for in cash through the second year. Grammatically, the phrase, `paid for in cash through the second year,' refers (as to the time element) to the month in which, under the bond, payments are due to the beneficiary and not at all to the date of Simon's death.

"If, for example, in the month of April in a given year (any year following the death of Simons and prior to the expiration of the life of the bond), there is in force $50,000 of insurance secured by Simons and which, before the beginning of that month, had been paid for in cash through its second year, then the beneficiary is to be paid the amount stipulated in the bond.

"Not only is this interpretation supported by a literal reading of the bond but it is supported also by the obvious purpose of the parties. The second year's premium would not have been paid on any insurance secured by Mr. Simons during the last year of...