Globe Reserve Mut. Life Ins. Co. of Baltimore City v. Duffy
| Decision Date | 17 November 1892 |
| Citation | 25 A. 227,76 Md. 293 |
| Parties | GLOBE RESERVE MUT. LIFE INS. CO. OF BALTIMORE CITY v. DUFFY et al. |
| Court | Maryland Court of Appeals |
Appeal from superior court of Baltimore city.
Action by Hervey B. Duffy and Morris H. Sutton against the Globe Reserve Mutual Life Insurance Company of Baltimore city, to recover on a policy issued on the life of one Moses Mason, and assigned by him to plaintiffs. Judgment for plaintiffs. Defendant appeals. Reversed.
Argued before Robinson, Bryan, Roberts, Fowler, and McSherry, JJ.
L. Hockheimer and Ch. L. Wilson, for appellant.
Isidor Rayner and Wm. S. Bryan, Jr., for appellees.
On the 4th of August, 1886, the Globe Benefit Reserve Mutual Life Insurance Company of Baltimore city issued a policy upon the life of Moses Mason, and a few days thereafter the assured assigned the policy to the appellees. On the 28th of September following Mason died. Proofs of death were furnished, but the company refused to pay the insurance, and this suit was thereupon instituted. The only questions arising on the pending appeal are presented by the prayers for instructions to the jury, and the principal one of these is brought before us by the fourth instruction given at the instance of the appellees. It is in these words: "The plaintiff prays the court to instruct the jury that if any of the answers in the application for insurance of Moses Mason were written down by the agent or examining physician of the defendant, and were known to such agent or physician to be inaccurate or untrue, then, if the jury believe that the said Moses Mason was an ignorant colored man, the untruth of such answers will not vitiate the policy of insurance, unless the said Moses Mason and the said agent or physician fraudulently combined together to defraud the defendant." It appears by the record that the medical examiner wrote down the answers to the various questions upon the printed application, and among the answers given it was stated that Mason had no pulmonary and no kidney trouble. This application was signed by Mason, and was the basis upon which the policy was issued. The medical examiner testified to the truth of these answers. The company offered evidence tending to prove that Mason had, when he signed the application, and for some years prior thereto had had, both pulmonary and kidney trouble, from which he died in less than two months after the date of the policy. In this state of conflicting evidence the Instruction under review was granted. If the medical examiner was the agent of the company, it surely requires no argument to show that it was not within the scope of his authority to mislead and deliberately impose upon his principal. His agency, from the very nature of the case, was confined to eliciting the truth, and did not extend to substituting falsehood there for. He was not an agent to procure false answers, but true ones. It cannot be supposed that the company clothed him with authority to perpetrate a fraud upon itself. Notwithstanding this is so, there are many cases in which, to prevent fraud and gross injustice, an insurance company is estopped, on grounds of the highest public policy, to object that the statements made by its agents beyond the scope of their authority are false. But there must be no complicity on the part of the assured; because, if false answers be written in the application by the agent with the knowledge of the assured, the latter becomes an accomplice, and both perpetrate a fraud upon the company. In such a case it is obvious that a recovery could not be permitted upon a policy thus procured; and so, where false answers have been written by the agent without the knowledge of the assured, but the latter has the means at hand to discover the falsehood and negligently omits to use them, he will be regarded as an instrument in the perpetration of the fraud, and no recovery could be had upon the policy. Insurance Co. v. Fletcher, 117 U. S. 519, 6 Sup. Ct. Rep. 837; Ryan v. Insurance Co., 41 Conn. 168; Lewis v. Insurance Co., 39 Conn. 100. If the assured be neither an accomplice nor an instrument, and be imposed upon without fault on his own part by the agent of the company, his beneficiary will be entitled to recover, notwithstanding the statements are inaccurate or untrue. Asso...
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