Harty v. Eagle Indem. Co.

• Decision Date: 18 December 1928
• Citation: 143 A. 847,108 Conn. 563
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: HARTY v. EAGLE INDEMNITY CO.

143 A. 847

108 Conn. 563

HARTY v. EAGLE INDEMNITY CO.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

December 18, 1928

Appeal from Court of Common Pleas, Fairfield County; E. Earle Garlick, Judge.

Action by Margaret Harty against the Eagle Indemnity Company to recover a judgment obtained by the plaintiff against a third party to whom the defendant had issued a policy of automobile liability insurance, brought to the court of common pleas for Fairfield county and tried to the court, Garlick, J. Judgment for the defendant, and appeal by the plaintiff. Error, and cause remanded.

Plaintiff suing on liability policy, need not show compliance with condition precedent unless special defense alleged failure to comply.

Philip Reich and Samuel Reich, both of Bridgeport, for appellant.

Daniel D. Morgan, of New Haven, for appellee.

Argued before WHEELER, C.J., and MALTBIE, HAINES, BANKS, and YEOMANS, JJ.

MALTBIE, J.

The plaintiff, having secured a judgment against one Mabel E Haskell on account of injuries caused by negligence in the operation of an automobile owned by her, brings this action under the provisions of chapter 331 of the Public Acts of 1919, to recover the amount of that judgment from the defendant, which had issued to Miss Haskell a policy of insurance agreeing to indemnify her against loss arising out of such a liability as that involved in the judgment. The plaintiff alleged that Miss Haskell had duly performed all of the conditions of the policy incumbent upon her, and to this allegation the defendant filed a simple denial. The testimony failed to disclose that Miss Haskell had performed any of those conditions, and the trial court gave judgment for the defendant, overruling the plaintiff's claim that, in the absence of any special defense based upon a failure of Miss Haskell to fulfill one or more of those conditions, it was not necessary for him to introduce evidence that she had fulfilled them.

Under Hennessy v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., 74 Conn. 699, 703, 52 A. 490; Vincent v. Mutual Reserve Fund Life Ass'n, 77 Conn. 281, 286, 58 A. 963; Benanti v. Delaware Ins. Co., 86 Conn. 15, 18, 84 A 109, Ann.Cas. 1913D, 826; Martoni v. Massachusetts Fire & Marine Ins. Co., 106 Conn. 519, 520, 138 A. 462; and Soritito v. Prudential Ins. Co., 108 Conn. 163, 142 A. 808--it has become the established law of this state that one instituting an action upon an insurance policy is only obliged to allege in his complaint, in general terms, that the various conditions precedent stated in the policy have been fulfilled; that it is then incumbent upon the defendant by way of special defense to set up such failures to comply with such conditions as it proposes to claim; that the burden rests upon the plaintiff to prove compliance with the conditions so put in issue; but that, as to other conditions precedent, compliance is presumed, without offer of proof by the plaintiff. The Hennessy, Vincent, Benanti, and Soritito Cases all dealt with claimed misstatements in the applications for insurance, and in the first the rule is based upon the ground of a natural presumption of fact in favor of the truth of the solemn acts and declarations involved in entering into such contracts. The Vincent and Benanti Cases, however, recognize the underlying reason for the rule that, in the interest of economy of time and effort and of simplicity of procedure,...