Fidelity, Etc., Co. v. Gas Co.
| Decision Date | 02 June 1892 |
| Citation | 150 Pa. 8 |
| Parties | Fidelity Title & Trust Co., for use <I>v.</I> Peoples Natural Gas Co., Appellant. |
| Court | Pennsylvania Supreme Court |
Before PAXSON, C. J., STERRETT, GREEN, WILLIAMS, McCOLLUM and MITCHELL, JJ.
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George Shiras 3d, for appellant.
Isaac S. Van Voorhis, with him W. B. Rodgers, for appellee.
OPINION BY MR. JUSTICE McCOLLUM, June 2, 1892.
The specifications of error in this case are founded upon the answers to the points submitted by the parties. The first and most material question raised by them is, whether the agreement on December 30, 1887, between the Fidelity Title & Trust Co., as trustee of the Patterson property, and the Peoples Natural Gas Co. appellant, is a bar to this action. In Ins. Co. of North America v. Fidelity Title & Trust Co., 123 Pa. 523, the present appellee unsuccessfully contended that this agreement released the Peoples Natural Gas Co. from liability for fire loss, and consequently constituted a bar to the action against the insurance company to recover its proportion of the same. If this loss was caused by the negligence of the Peoples Natural Gas Co., the liability for it was on such company, and the position of the insurer was that of a surety who is discharged by a settlement or agreement which releases the principal. It became necessary, therefore, in the case cited, to construe the agreement in question, and determine whether it operated as a release of the Peoples Natural Gas Co. from liability for the fire loss. If it did, it also operated as a discharge of the insurance company from its liability upon its covenants in reference to the same. It was held that the rights and obligations of the parties respecting the fire loss were not affected by the agreement. The reasons for this conclusion were clearly and forcibly stated by our brother WILLIAMS, who delivered the opinion of the court, and it is not necessary to repeat them here. It is sufficient, on this branch of the case, to say that nothing was developed on the trial of the present issue which affords any ground for modifying the written agreement, or suggests any doubt of the correctness of the former construction of it.
The language objected to in the appellee's point, which was affirmed, was taken from the opinion in Ins. Co. v. Fidelity Co., supra, and, as there used, manifestly means that the gas company, having expressly excepted the fire loss from, could not afterwards be heard to allege that the claim for it was invalidated and...
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