Hartford Accident Indemnity Co v. Delta Pine Land Co
| Decision Date | 09 April 1934 |
| Docket Number | No. 650,650 |
| Citation | 78 L.Ed. 1178,54 S.Ct. 634,292 U.S. 143 |
| Parties | HARTFORD ACCIDENT & INDEMNITY CO. et al. v. DELTA & PINE LAND CO. * |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Appeal from the Supreme Court of the State of Mississippi.
Mr. Wm. M. Hall, of Memphis, Tenn., for appellants.
Mr. Garner W. Green, of Jackson, Miss., for appellee.
This was an action instituted in a circuit court of Mississippi by Delta & Pine Land Company, a corporation of that state, with its principal place of business therein, against Hartford Accident & Indemnity Company, a corporation of Connecticut, having its principal place of business in Hartford in that state. The declaration alleges that on or about January 1, 1928, the plaintiff ap- plied to the defendant for a fidelity bond and paid the agreed premiums therefor, and the defendant executed and delivered to the plaintiff such a bond, whereby it bound itself to pay the plaintiff, within sixty days after satisfactory proof, pecuniary loss sustained by the plaintiff through fraud or dishonesty or willful misapplication by any employee 'in any position, anywhere,' from the time that the name of such employee should be placed upon a schedule attached to the bond to and including the termination of the suretyship for such employee by his dismissal, retirement from service, discovery of loss, or cancellation of the bond by the parties. It is alleged that the name of H. H. Harris, as treasurer of the plaintiff, appears upon the schedule, and that the amount of coverage for him is $25,000. Sundry defalcations by Harris between May 9, 1929, and December 20, 1929, totaling $2,703.79, are set forth, all of which and the resulting loss occurred in the First judicial district of Bolivar county, Miss. The further material matters charged are that the defendant, throughout all the times mentioned in the declaration, and ever since, was and now is duly qualified and licensed to do business in Mississippi; that the dishonest acts of Harris were discovered on or about May 20, 1931, immediate notice given to the defendant at its home office, and affirmative proof of loss under oath, with full particulars, filed with the defendant at its home office within three months after the discovery. The declaration in conclusion asserts compliance by plaintiff with all the terms of the bond, and refusal of the defendant, though requested, to make payment of the sum demanded. Annexed to the declaration are copies of the bond and the supplementary schedules forming part of it.
The defendant's plea was, in substance: The plaintiff, before and at the date of the contract of suretyship, was doing business in Tennessee, with its principal office at Memphis in that state, and defendant also was then and is now doing business in Tennessee, having an agency at Memphis; plaintiff, through its office at Memphis, applied to defendant through its agency there for the bond, rider, and schedules containing the name of the defaulting employee, Harris, constituting the contract of suretyship; defendant through its agency at Memphis executed and delivered the bond and schedules to plaintiff at its office in that city; the contract is a Tennessee contract and governed by the laws of Tennessee, and full faith and credit must be given to it in the courts of Mississippi in accordance with the requirements of article 4, § 1, article 1, § 10, and section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States; there was not at the time of delivery of the contract, and is not now, any statute in Tennessee prohibiting or invalidating the condition or limitation in the contract to the effect that any claim thereunder must be duly made upon the defendant as surety within fifteen months after the termination of the suretyship for the defaulting employee, and the plaintiff did not make claim upon the defendant for the loss within fifteen months after the termination of the suretyship for Harris, as the contract was canceled and terminated December 31, 1929, and the plaintiff made no claim until June 22, 1931.
To this plea the plaintiff demurred, assigning these causes of demurrer: (1) The construction and validity of the provision of the contract relied upon in the plea is to be determined by the laws of Mississippi, and not by the laws of Tennessee; (2) the statute of limitations of the state where suit is brought is the statute which governs the time for bringing this action, and the provision in the contract requiring that any claim thereunder must be made upon the defendant within fifteen months after the termination of the suretyship for the defaulting employee is in violation of section 2294 of the Mississippi Code of 1930 and in violation of the public policy of Mississippi, and its courts are not required to give full faith and credit to this provision of the contract by article 4, § 1, article 1, § 10, or section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution.
The cause came on for hearing upon the pleadings, and the court sustained the demurrer. The defendant declined to plead further; whereupon judgment was entered by default in favor of the plaintiff, a jury was impaneled and assessed damages at the amount claimed, and final judgment was accordingly entered.
Upon appeal by the defendant, the Supreme Court of Mississippi affirmed the judgment. 150 So. 205. Conceding that under the decisions of the Supreme Court of Tennessee the provision for notice within fifteen months of the termination of the suretyship is a valid limitation of liability and not a limitation of action, the court said the converse is true in Mississippi. Although the bond was executed and delivered and the agreement consummated in Tennessee, where the plaintiff and the defendant's agent had their respective offices, and where, in the absence of proof of a contrary intent, the contract was to be performed, the court concluded that the statutes of Mississippi made the instrument a Mississippi contract, and annulled the contractual limitation of the time for giving of notice of claim.
The...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Morrison v. Guaranty Mortgage & Trust Co
... ... First Joint Stock Land ... Bank of N. O., 178 Miss. 345, 173 So. 297, ... v. Miles, etc., 34 Miss. 56; ... Hartford, etc., v. Delta & Pine Land Co., 292 U.S ... ...
-
Connecticut General Life Ins Co v. Johnson
...Home Insurance Co. v. Dick, 281 U.S. 397, 50 S.Ct. 338, 74 L.Ed. 926, 74 A.L.R. 701; Hartford Accident & Indemnity Co. v. Delta & Pine Land Co., 292 U.S. 143, 54 S.Ct. 634, 78 L.Ed. 1178, 92 A.L.R. 928; Boseman v. Connecticut General Life Ins. Co., 301 U.S. 196, 57 S.Ct. 686, 81 L.Ed. 1036,......
-
Lauritzen v. Larsen
...its law otherwise foreign controversies, on slight connections, because it is a forum state. Hartford Accident & Indemnity Co. v. Delta & Pine Land Co., 292 U.S. 143, 54 S.Ct. 634, 78 L.Ed. 1178; Home Insurance Co. v. Dick, 281 U.S. 397, 50 S.Ct. 338, 74 L.Ed. 926. The purpose of a conflict......
-
Sun Oil Company v. Wortman
...in Allstate Ins. Co. v. Hague, 449 U.S. 302, 101 S.Ct. 633, 66 L.Ed.2d 521 (1981), of Hartford Accident & Indemnity Co. v. Delta & Pine Land Co., 292 U.S. 143, 54 S.Ct. 634, 78 L.Ed. 1178 (1934), is not to the contrary. That criticism merely rejected the view that the Constitution enshrines......
-
Erisa: Fumbling the Limitations Period
...notice voided a contractual limitation of two years from shipment). But see Hartford Accident and Indem. Co. v. Delta and Pine Land Co., 292 U.S. 143, 148-49 (1934) (upholding contractual limitations in face of state statute voiding such provisions, since contract had no relation to forum s......
-
How Many Times Was Lochner-era Substantive Due Process Effective? - Michael J. Phillips
...action arose outside state, and foreign corporation had no in-state agent). 63. See Hartford Accident & Indem. Co. v. Delta Pine Land Co., 292 U.S. 143, 149-50 (1934) (Mississippi statute invalidating fidelity bond provisions limiting time within which suit possible does not govern contract......
-
Jurisdictional Discrimination and Full Faith and Credit
...the payment upon the person's being missing for ten years).87. See, e.g., Hartford Accident & Indem. Co. v. Delta & Pine Land Co., 292 U.S. 143, 149 (1934); Home Ins. Co. v. Dick, 281 U.S. 397, 408-09 (1930). 88. Home Ins. Co., 281 U.S. at 406-07; see also id. at 408 (holding that an "attem......