Duel v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co.
Decision Date | 18 May 1943 |
Citation | 9 N.W.2d 593,243 Wis. 172 |
Parties | DUEL, Commissioner of Insurance, v. STATE FARM MUT. AUTOMOBILE INS. CO. |
Court | Wisconsin Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeals from orders of the Circuit Court for Dane County; August C. Hoppmann, Judge.
Actions by Morvin Duel, Commissioner of Insurance of Wisconsin, against the State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company, an Illinois corporation, to enforce plaintiff's order denying defendant a license to do business in Wisconsin. From order overruling defendant's motion to dismiss on ground that the cases were moot because the license years involved had expired and basis for refusing license had been eliminated, defendant appeals.-[By Editorial Staff].
Appeals dismissed.
See, also, 1 N.W.2d 887 and 2 N.W.2d 871.
Actions commenced June 5, 1940, and May 6, 1941, by the commissioner of insurance to enforce his orders each of which denied the defendant a license to do business in Wisconsin for the current licenseyear. The defendant appealed to this court from the orders overruling the demurrers to the complaint, and this court affirmed the trial court in Duel v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Ins. Co., 240 Wis. 161,1 N.W.2d 887. The company then filed an answer in which it was alleged that the two cases were moot because the license years involved had expired and because the company had ceased using the life membership fee plan complained of. The company filed motions to dismiss and it appeals from the orders overruling these motions.
R. M. Rieser, of Madison, and Herbert H. Naujoks, of Chicago, Ill. (Ekern, Meyers & Matthias, of Chicago, Ill., and Rieser & Mathys, of Madison, of counsel), for appellant.
John E. Martin, Atty Gen., and James Ward Rector, Deputy Atty. Gen., for respondent.
The state through its proper official, the insurance commissioner, in April, 1940, challenged the lawfulness of the defendant's practice in using “a membership fee as the consideration for a life privilege-a fee to which is allocated a portion of the expense of furnishing insurance protection, which is treated as earned at once and against which unearned premium reserves cannot be set up as required by the statutes.” See Duel v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Ins. Co., 240 Wis. 161, 1 N.W.2d 887. The defendant was not granted a license to carry on its business in Wisconsin. The actions begun by the commissioner to enforce the rulings have not been tried. By reason of the steps taken in legal procedure the defendant continued in business in opposition to a ruling of the state and during that time the company claimed it was within its rights. It now seeks a license for a current year and alleges its abandonment of the practice objected to. Upon that state of facts it asks that the pending actions be dismissed as moot. The application was denied at the circuit and the company brings the matter here on appeal.
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