Hartman v. Keystone Insurance Company
| Decision Date | 08 September 1853 |
| Citation | 21 Pa. 466 |
| Parties | Hartman <I>versus</I> Keystone Insurance Company. |
| Court | Pennsylvania Supreme Court |
Berryhill and McCormick, for the Company.—It was, inter alia, contended that a false assertion will vitiate a policy of insurance, even though the loss happen in a way not affected by that falsity: Parke on Insurance, 286. On true principles of equity and justice, the concealment or misrepresentation by the assured, whether wilful or not, of any such facts as might reasonably be supposed to have influenced the underwriter in taking the risk or fixing the rate of premium, will avoid the policy: Arnould on Insurance, vol. 1, 488. Policies on lives are equally vitiated by fraud or falsehood as those on marine insurance, because they are equally contracts of good faith, in which the underwriter, from necessity, must rely on the integrity of the insured for the statement of circumstances: Park on Insurance, 647-8, 327, 283; 3 Kent 282; 2 Duer on Insurance, 381; Ellis on Insurance, 111. If the assured conceals anything material for the company to know, the policy is void, and it matters not whether the assured considered it material or not; and what amounts to a misrepresentation or a material concealment is a question for the jury: 8 B. & C. 586; 3 C. & P. 350; 3 M. & R. 45. The materiality of facts concealed or misrepresented, is not to be determined by the event, but results solely from their probable influence on the estimated value of the risks at the time they were assumed. The question is not whether the loss that is claimed is attributable in any degree to the risks that were concealed; but whether, had the facts been known, the underwriter would have subscribed the policy, or would have limited himself to the premium that he received. He is discharged if the contract is not such as, with a knowledge of the truth, he would have consented to make: Duer on Insurance, vol. 2, 382.
The seventeenth and last error relates to the construction of the words of the policy. The intention is manifestly to guard against suicide, and there is but an error in punctuation. If the policy is to be considered silent on the subject of suicide, then on principle the same result must follow, for suicide would be a fraud on the insurance company, as clearly as the burning of a house by the party who had it insured would render a fire policy void.
The opinion of the Court was delivered, September 8, 1853, by BLACK, C. J.
This was covenant on a policy of insurance for the benefit of William Callender, the plaintiff's intestate, upon his own life. The defence set up by the company was that the assured had committed suicide, and that when he made application for the insurance he represented his occupation to be that of a farmer, though he was in fact not a farmer but a slave-catcher. It was also pleaded that he had been engaged in running railroad cars, but the evidence did not show it.
There are seventeen specifications of error, but some of them are repetitions of others. The material questions raised in the argument may be thus stated.
1. Whether it was erroneous to permit the defendants to amend their pleas as they were amended on the trial.
2. Whether the facts on which the defence based itself, could be given in evidence under the pleading and notices.
3. Whether persons who owned stock in the company and were insured by it, could give up their policies and sell out their shares for the express purpose of becoming witnesses, and thus make themselves competent to testify for the company.
4. Whether there was evidence of the assured being a slave-catcher, which the Court could submit to the jury.
5. Whether, if he was a slave-catcher, his declaration that he was a farmer was such a misrepresentation as made the policy void.
6. Whether the occupation of the assured was the trade or business which he had learned in his youth, or that which he was pursuing at the date of the policy.
7. Whether the testimony of the company's clerk, that he considered slave-catching a dangerous business, and that a risk would not be taken at any premium on the life of one known to be so engaged, is admissible; there being nothing in the printed rates of premium to show that persons of this class were considered hazardous lives.
8. Whether the declarations of the assured, several months before his application, that he intended to effect an insurance on his life, were admissible to rebut evidence given by the defendant tending to show that the insurance was effected with a view to suicide.
9. Whether the conditions of the policy must be so construed that the assured might commit suicide by taking poison, without thereby making the policy void.
We will consider these questions in their order, as I have set them down.
I. By the act of 1806, a defendant may amend or change his plea before or during the trial, if it be necessary that he should do so in order to reach the merits of the case. His counsel is generally permitted to judge of this necessity. The Court cannot tell whether it is needed or not, until they have all the evidence before them. When an amendment is asked for with a view to some unfair advantage, such as throwing on the plaintiff the burden of proving a fact not previously put in issue, and thus exposing him to the danger of defeat or the necessity of a continuance; or where the object is to get the conclusion of the argument; it ought to be refused. And because every court is liable to be imposed on in this way, leave to amend ought never to be given unless the motion for it be supported by an affidavit that it will affect the merits of the case, and that the change is not desired for any other reason.
But we cannot reverse the judgment for an improper alteration of the plea. I do not find any case in which this has ever been done. A plaintiff may amend his declaration as he pleases, provided only that he does not introduce a new cause of action. If this rule be violated the judgment will be reversed, because we can determine it on a simple inspection of the record. But the right of the defendant to change his plea, is not limited by anything but the discretion of the Court, and by that he is held merely to good faith.
It is alleged here, and we think with some reason, that this amendment was made to give the defendant the right of addressing the jury in conclusion. If it was, and the Court discovered it in time, the purpose should have been defeated, and the conclusion given to the plaintiff notwithstanding. But neither is it a fatal error that the Court permitted the counsel to speak in the wrong order. It is true, the English cases say otherwise. There very much depends on having the last word, and more still on the right to begin. But an English trial bears so little resemblance to an American one, that their decisions on a point like this are entitled to no weight whatever with us.
II. It does not seem to us necessary to discuss the next question at much length. The pleas were sufficient to put in issue the facts proved. The variance alleged between the evidence and the notice is very unsubstantial. A notice of special matter must state the facts upon which the defendant relies, and not either the evidence by which they are to be established, or the inferences to be made from them. Here the plaintiff was in substance notified that proof would be given to show that Callender was insured as a farmer at a premium lower than would be taken from a person who was known to be engaged in running cars; that he was engaged in running cars, and also in the still more perilous business of slave-catching. From this we think the plaintiff was bound to understand that the...
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