Globe Mut. Life Ins. Ass'n v. Wagner

• Decision Date: 20 December 1900
• Citation: 58 N.E. 970,188 Ill. 133
• Parties: GLOBE MUT. LIFE INS. ASS'N v. WAGNER.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

188 Ill. 133

58 N.E. 970

GLOBE MUT. LIFE INS. ASS'N

v.WAGNER.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Dec. 20, 1900.

Appeal from appellate court, First district.

Action by Dora Wagner against the Globe Mutual Life Insurance Association. From judgment of the appellate court (90 Ill. App. 444) affirming judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals. Affirmed.

Appellee, Dora Wagner, recovered a judgment of $250 in a suit in assumpsit in the superior court of Cook county against appellant, the Globe Mutual Life Insurance Association of Chicago, on a policy of insurance issued to her on the life of her son Richard Wagner. The association appealed to the appellate court, where the judgment of the superior court was affirmed, and now prosecutes this further appeal; the appellate court having certified that the cause involves questions of law of such importance as that it should be passed upon by the supreme court.

Hoyne, O'Connor & Hoyne, for appellant.

Francis T. Colby, for appellee.

WILKIN, J.

The chief ground urged by appellant for a reversal of the judgment of the appellate court is the falsity of the answer to one of the questions appearing in the medical examination of the insured. On the back of the application made by appellee, in what purports to be the medical examination of the insured, this question and answer appear: ‘Q. How many brothers dead? Ans. None.’ The medical examination is certified to by the medical examiner, as follows: ‘I certify that I have this 7th day of October, 1895, made a personal examination of the above-named person (Richard Wagner), and that the above answers are in my own handwriting, and that the signature of the applicant or person examined was written in my presence. M. J. McKenna, M. D.’ Preceding the medical examiner's certificate, and immediately at the end of the series of questions and answers referred to in the certificate, of which the quoted question is one, appears the following language, to which is affixed the signature of Richard Wagner, the insured: ‘I hereby declare and warrant that the answers to the above questions, and the statements made in the application on the other side hereof, are true, and were written by me or by my proper agent, and that said answers and statements, together with this warranty, shall form the basis of any contract of insurance that may be entered into between me and the Globe Mutual Insurance Association, and that if a contract of insurance is issued it shall not be binding on the company unless, upon its date and delivery, I shall be in sound health.’ On the front side of the sheet, on the back of which is the medical examination and statement signed, as above, by the insured, is the application by appellee for the policy, and over her signature appears the following: ‘I hereby make application for the policy described above, and as an inducement to the association to issue a policy, and as a consideration therefor, make the agreement as to agency, and all other agreements and warranties contained in the medical examination, as fully as if I had signed the same.’ It...