Fort v. State

• Decision Date: 03 July 1893
• Citation: 18 S.E. 14,92 Ga. 8
• Parties: FORT . v. STATE.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

18 S.E. 14

92 Ga. 8

FORT .

v.STATE.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

July 3, 1893.

Insurance —Doing Business without License— Corporations—Criminal, Prosecution. By the act of October 24, 1887, to regulate the business of insurance, no unincorporated company is required to obtain, or can obtain, from the insurance commissioner a license to transact the business of insurance in this state; and the penalty prescribed in the ninth section of the act for doing or performing any of the acts or things mentioned therein for any insurance company is not applicable unless the company is one incorporated by the laws of this state or some other state or of a foreign government. According to the facts appearing in the record, the Guarantee & Accident Lloyds is a voluntary association, unincorporated, consisting of 100 natural persons. This being so, that company cannot be licensed to transact the business of insurance in this state; and, although there is no statutory authority for it to transact business without a license, a person who, as its agent, assists it in doing so, is not guilty of any offense.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Error from city court of Atlanta; T. P. Westmoreland, Judge.

C. M. Fort was convicted of violating the insurance law by rendering services to an unlicensed company, and brings error. Reversed.

Hall & Hammond, for plaintiff in error.

Lewis W. Thomas, J. M. Terrell, Atty. Gen., and Hillyer & Lee, for the State.

LUMPKIN, J. A careful reading of the act of October 24, 1887, "to regulate the business of insurance in this state, and for other purposes, " (Acts 1886-87, p. 113,) will satisfy the reader that the general assembly Intended therein to deal only with Insurance companies chartered by this state or other states or by a foreign government The second section of the act requires incorporated insurance companies to procure licenses from the insurance commissioner as a necessary prerequisite to the transaction of the businessof insurance in this state; but neither in this section nor in any other portion of the act is there any requirement that an unincorporated insurance company shall obtain a license, or any provision for the granting of a license to such a company. In view of this fact, it may well be doubted if the general assembly had in contemplation the possibility that any insurance company without a charter would be likely to undertake to do business in Georgia; otherwise it is more than probable that the act would either have expressly provided for licensing unincorporated companies, or else have declared in terms that no such company should transact business in this state at all. It is therefore safe to assume that in the general scheme of the act unincorporated companies were entirely overlooked. We are quite certain that the general assembly could not have intended in an indirect manner to make penal the transaction of insurance business by an agent of an insurance company which had not procured a license from the insurance commissioner, when it had made no provision by which the company in question could obtain each license. It would have been much easier and more natural to declare that licenses should not be issued at all to unincorporated companies; and then, in general terms, make it penal for an agent to transact business for any insurance company not entitled by law to receive a license, or to carry on business in this state. Our conclusion, therefore, is that the penalty prescribed in the second paragraph of the ninth section of the act for rendering the services therein mentioned to "any insurance company" is not applicable unless the company is one which has been chartered under the laws of this or some other state or of a foreign government, and this conclusion seems...