Faulkner v. Faulkner

• Citation: 192 Miss. 358,5 So.2d 421
• Decision Date: 12 January 1942
• Docket Number: 34778.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Mississippi
• Parties: FAULKNER v. FAULKNER.

5 So.2d 421

192 Miss. 358

FAULKNER v. FAULKNER.

No. 34778.

Supreme Court of Mississippi

January 12, 1942

W H. Montjoy and Alfred M. Stoner, both of Greenwood, for appellant.

Osborn & Lott, of Greenwood, for appellee.

ALEXANDER Justice.

Ike Faulkner was an employee of the Mississippi Power & Light Company through which he had procured by virtue of such employment a policy of life insurance with the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. Among the provisions of such policy are the following: "The right to change the beneficiary is reserved," also "Should you desire to change the beneficiary under the Certificate, your request for such change must be submitted through your employer." Premiums on such policy were paid by such employer which deducted the amounts therefor from the employee's wages.

In this policy the beneficiary named was Pauline S. Faulkner, whose acquaintance was made by the insured in 1931, since which date and until 1936 they lived together as husband and wife. In 1936 there was a separation and the insured thereafter lived with Emma J. Faulkner until his death in 1940. Mutually disparaging recriminations are indulged by respective counsel each involving without ambiguity allegations of a callous want of conformity unto those social niceties ordinarily deemed prerequisite to formal marriage. The respective and rival consorts in seeking to tar the other with the same accusatory stick have blackened their own hands beyond the power of equity to espouse the cause of either. By going directly to the controlling issue, we avoid encounter with these recriminations, abandoned to serve their complete function in creating a ready outlet for relief from the accumulated pressure of impounded outrage.

The issue here is whether an attempt by Ike Faulkner to have the beneficiary in the policy changed to Emma was effective when adjudged by equitable principles. About two years before his death the insured took two life policies, one of which is here involved, to Mr. Roland, a foreman for the light company and the insured's "boss", with the request that the beneficiary in both policies be changed in favor of appellee. According to Mr. Roland, these policies were forwarded to the insurance department of the light company with this request. Thereafter the light company sent blank forms upon which application for such change should be made. These forms were properly filled out by insured and mailed back to the light company. In due course both policies were returned in an envelope by Mr. Roland to insured who turned them over to appellee, Emma Faulkner. The latter placed them at once in a metal box under her bed where they remained until after insured's death in 1940. Thereupon it was discovered that the policy in suit was not changed although the other had been made to conform to the request.

Suit was filed by Emma Faulkner against Pauline Sims Faulkner and the insurance company. The insurance company denied that it had received the actual policy for change in beneficiary but paid the proceeds into the registry of the court and impleaded the rival claimants. By such course the insurance company waived the requirements of the policy as to the method of change of beneficiary, which formalities are solely for benefit of the insurer. Hall v. Allen, 75 Miss 175, 22 So. 4, 65 Am.St.Rep. 601; 2 Couch, Cyc. of Insurance Law, Sec. 328. Under the...