Fratto v. New Amsterdam Fire Insurance Co., 15510-15513.
| Citation | 359 F.2d 842 |
| Decision Date | 29 April 1966 |
| Docket Number | No. 15510-15513.,15510-15513. |
| Parties | Dominick and Rosina FRATTO, Individually and t/d/b/a Silver Fox Inn, Appellants, v. NEW AMSTERDAM FIRE INSURANCE COMPANY, a Foreign Corporation et al., Intervenors. Dominick and Rosina FRATTO, Individually and t/d/b/a Silver Fox Inn v. NEW AMSTERDAM FIRE INSURANCE COMPANY, a Foreign Corporation, et al., Appellants, and Crawford Lieberum, Alvin G. Barr, Paul Lieberum and Helen Lieberum, His Wife, Intervenors. Dominick and Rosina FRATTO, Individually and Trading and Doing Business as Silver Fox Inn v. NORTHERN INSURANCE COMPANY OF NEW YORK, a New York Corporation, Appellant, and Crawford Lieberum, Alvin G. Barr, Paul Lieberum and Helen Lieberum, His Wife, Intervenors. Dominick and Rosina FRATTO, Individually and Trading and Doing Business as Silver Fox Inn v. The HOME INSURANCE COMPANY OF NEW YORK, a New York Corporation, Appellant, and Crawford Lieberum, Alvin Barr, Paul Lieberum and Helen Lieberum, His Wife, Intervenors. |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (3rd Circuit) |
James E. McLaughlin, Pittsburgh, Pa. (John M. Tighe, McArdle, Harrington, Feeney & McLaughlin, Pittsburgh, Pa., on the brief), for Dominick and Rosina Fratto, individually and t/d/b/a Silver Fox Inn.
Thomas Lewis Jones, Pittsburgh, Pa. (Samuel P. Gerace, White, Jones & Gregg, Pittsburgh, Pa., on the brief), for New Amsterdam Fire Ins. Co., and others.
Before BIGGS and GANEY, Circuit Judges, and SHERIDAN, District Judge.
No. 15510 Submitted March 28, 1966.
Nos. 15511-15513 Argued March 28, 1966.
These are four appeals from judgments growing out of an explosion and fire at the Silver Fox Inn at Foxburg in the Western District of Pennsylvania. The four cases were consolidated for trial and were tried by the court without a jury. The case brought by the Frattos, the owners of the Inn, against the insurance companies, No. 63-507 (Civil) in the court below, was dismissed for lack of jurisdictional amount. The appeal from the judgment of dismissal at our No. 15510, was withdrawn in open court at the beginning of the argument before us. No other course was feasible. The appeals at our Nos. 15511, 15512, and 15513, Nos. 63-507, 63-310, and 63-311, Civil, in the court below, are pressed. The appeals, referred to in the previous sentence, were taken by the insurance companies from judgments procured against them by the Frattos as appears from the respective records. The position of the intervenors, the Lieberums and Barr, requires no discussion. Their position is fully described in the opinion of the court below, 242 F.Supp. 262, at 264, third finding of fact.
The defendants-appellants, the insurance companies, have raised three major issues. We will deal with these in the order in which they were argued. The insurance companies contend that the trial court erred in finding there was insufficient evidence to prove a conspiracy by the Frattos to defraud the insurance companies by destroying the Silver Fox Inn to collect the insurance. The trial court heard the evidence and was the judge of the veracity of the witnesses and of the weight of the evidence. We cannot say that its findings of fact and conclusions on this issue were clearly erroneous. Cf. Klein v. Auto Owners Ins. Co., 39 F.R.D. 24 (D.Minn.1965), strongly relied on by the appellants.
Second, the appellants assert that the trial court committed reversible error by holding that the...
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