Eagle, Etc., Ins. Co. v. Heller

• Decision Date: 17 November 1927
• Citation: 149 Va. 82
• Parties: EAGLE, STAR AND BRITISH DOMINIONS INSURANCE COMPANY v. MAX HELLER.
• Court: Virginia Supreme Court

Page 82

149 Va. 82

EAGLE, STAR AND BRITISH DOMINIONS INSURANCE COMPANY v. MAX HELLER.

Supreme Court of Virginia, Richmond.

November 17, 1927.

1. FIRE INSURANCE — Action on Policy After Plaintiff had been Convicted of Burning the Stock of Goods Insured — Rejecting Pleas of Res Judicata and of Estoppel — Excluding Evidence of Plaintiff's Conviction of Burning the Stock of Goods — Case at Bar. — The instant case was an action on a fire insurance policy on a stock of goods brought after plaintiff had been convicted under Code of 1919, section 4436, of wilfully burning the same stock of goods with intent to injure or defraud the insurer. Issue was joined upon defendant company's plea of the general issue. Among the grounds of defense filed by the defendant was that the fire was not accidental, but caused by the plaintiff with intent to defraud the defendant, and that the defendant had been convicted of burning the property insured with intent to defraud the defendant. In addition to the plea of the general issue the defendant filed a plea of res judicata which the court struck out, and a plea of estoppel averring the conviction of felony as an estoppel to the maintenance of the action, which the court rejected. The trial court by instructions to the jury held that the evidence of the conviction was irrelevant, immaterial and inadmissible upon the issues raised in the instant case.

Held: That the trial court erred in rejecting these pleas and in excluding the evidence offered in support of the facts alleged therein and by its instructions.

2. RES JUDICATA — Civil and Criminal Cases — Record in Criminal Case as Evidence in Civil Case. — The record of a conviction, or of an acquittal, is not, according to a decided preponderance of authority, conclusive of the facts on which it is based in any civil action, nor, ordinarily, is it even evidence of such facts.

3. RES JUDICATA — Civil and Criminal Cases — Record in Criminal Case as Evidence in Civil Case — Distinction between Acquittal and Conviction. — It is perfectly logical to hold that if an offender has been acquitted in a criminal prosecution, that acquittal should not bind another party seeking civil redress for a personal injury arising out of the same occurrence, because the prosecution may have failed merely because the guilt of the accused was not proved beyond any reasonable doubt. This reason, however, seems to fail where there is a conviction, and the fact of guilt (when it is also the precise fact in issue in the civil case) has been judicially determined, because the plaintiff in the civil action is only bound to prove that fact by a preponderance of the evidence.

4. FIRE INSURANCE — Action on Policy After Plaintiff had been Convicted of Burning a Stock of Goods Insured — Case at Bar. — The instant case was an action on a fire insurance policy on a stoc of goods brought after plaintiff had been convicted under Code of 1919, section 4436, of wilfully burning the same stock of goods with intent to injure the insurer. Plaintiff, while on the stand and averring his innocence and good faith, testified that he had been convicted of burning the insured property. The vital question at issue — that is, whether or not the plaintiff fraudulently destroyed, or connived at the destruction of, his own property for the purpose of securing the insurance — is identical with that which was heard and determined in the criminal prosecution against plaintiff. While not res judicata as against the insurance company, plaintiff should not be permitted to reopen the question and to avoid the legal effect of the judgment of conviction by a collateral attack upon it. If plaintiff could succeed in the instant action, he would thereby avoid the logical consequences of his conviction.

5. JUDGMENTS AND DECREES — Collateral Attack — Judgment in Criminal Case. — Like other judgments, a judgment in a criminal case cannot be attacked collaterally.

6. JUDGMENTS AND DECREES — Collateral Attack — Sound or Unsound Decision. — When the trial court has jurisdiction by law of the offense charged in an indictment, and of the party who is so charged, its judgments are, as a general rule, valid, and cannot be questioned for error or mistake in a collateral proceeding. In such cases, where the decision is within the court's jurisdiction, it is immaterial whether the decision is sound or unsound.

7. JUDGMENTS AND DECREES — Collateral Attack — Action on Fire Insurance Policy After Plaintiff had been Convicted of Burning the Property with Intent to Defraud. — In the instant case, an action on a fire insurance policy after accused had been convicted of burning the property with intent to defraud the insurer, accused sought to reopen the precise question which was decided in the criminal case, namely, whether or not he burnt the property with intent to defraud the insurer, and to avoid the legal consequences of his conviction.

Held: That the reason for the rule that judgments of courts of record having jurisdiction could not be collaterally attacked applied to the instant case.

8. FORMER ADJUDICATION OR RES ADJUDICATA — Same Rules of Law, Practice or Evidence Prevailing in Both Tribunals. — In order that an adjudication in one court or tribunal should be regarded as res judicata upon the matters thereby determined when they come again in question in another tribunal, it is obviously not necessary that the same rules of law, practice or evidence should prevail in both tribunals. The attempt to impose any such limitation would defeat the whole purpose of the rule.

9. JUDGMENTS AND DECREES — Distinction between Direct and Collateral Attack. — Any proceeding provided by law for the purpose of avoiding or correcting a judgment is a direct attack, which will be successful upon showing error; while an attempt to do the same thing in any other proceeding is a collateral attack which will be successful only upon showing a want of power.

10. FIRE INSURANCE — Action by Plaintiff After He had been Convicted of Burning the Property Insured — Action for Tort — Case at Bar. — The instant case was an action on a fire insurance policy brought after plaintiff had been convicted of burning the property in question. The plaintiff had committed a felony, and in the present action sought to recover the fruit of his own crime. This crime, by the terms of the contract upon which he sues, avoids the contract, for under the policy sued on the plaintiff cannot recover if he wilfully burnt his own property. So that the issues raised in this action on the policy are quite different from those generally raised by a plaintiff suing an alleged wrongdoer in tort.

11. FIRE INSURANCE — Action by Plaintiff who had been Convicted of Burning the Property Insured — Exception to the General Rule that Records in Criminal Cases are not Admissible in Evidence in Civil Cases Involving Substantially the same Issues — Case at Bar. — The rule that records in criminal cases are not admissible in evidence in civil cases involving substantially the same issues is subject to an exception where a plaintiff in an action on a fire insurance policy has been previously convicted of burning the property insured with intent to defraud the insurer.

12. FIRE INSURANCE — Insured Burning Property with Intent to Injure or Defraud the Insurer — Recovery by Insured against Public Policy. — It would be against public policy to write into a contract of fire insurance a provision that the assured might recover, even though convicted under section 4436 of the Code of 1919 of burning the property with intent to defraud the insurer.

13. FIRE INSURANCE — Insured Burning Property with Intent to Injure or Defraud the Insurer — Recovery by Insured against Public Policy. — To permit a recovery under a policy of fire insurance by one who has been convicted of burning the property insured, would be to disregard the contract, be illogical, would discredit the administration of justice, defy public policy and shock the most unenlightened conscience.

14. FIRE INSURANCE — Action on Policy After Plaintiff had been Convicted of Burning the Property with Intent to Defraud the Insurer — Admissibility of Conviction — Collateral Attack. — The instant case was an action on a fire insurance policy where plaintiff had been previously convicted of burning the property with intent to defraud the insurer.

Held: That the court erred in refusing to admit evidence of plaintiff's conviction; that, when admitted, the precise finding of fact, that the accused was criminally responsible for the fire, unquestionably incendiary, which destroyed his goods, is conclusive upon the plaintiff; that this judgment of a court of competent jurisdiction was a determination of that particular and decisive fact as against him; that this judgment cannot be attacked except upon the ground of fraud, perjury, collusion, or some other such ground of invalidity; and that when so admitted in evidence there could have been but one proper verdict, and that a verdict for the defendant.

15. ARGUMENTS OF COUNSEL — Intemperate Argument. — Trial courts should restrain counsel indulging in violent, vituperative and intemperate attacks upon litigants, and when they fail to do so verdicts induced thereby will be set aside on appeal.

Error to a judgment of the Circuit Court of Rockingham county in an action of assumpsit. Judgment for plaintiff. Defendant assigns error.

The opinion states the case.

D. O. Dechert, for the plaintiff in error.

Chas. a. Hammer, for the defendant in error.

PRENTIS, P., delivered the opinion of the court.

This is a case in which a rigid adherence to a general rule and to some judicial expressions would be a reproach to the administration of justice. Max Heller has recovered under a fire insurance policy upon a stock of goods, after he had been convicted under the Virginia statute (Code, section 4436) of wilfully burning the same stock of goods with intent to injure the insurer....