Insurance Company v. Stinson
| Decision Date | 01 October 1880 |
| Citation | 26 L.Ed. 473,103 U.S. 25 |
| Parties | INSURANCE COMPANY v. STINSON |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
ERROR to the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Massachusetts.
The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.
Mr. Charles T. Russell and Mr. Charles T. Russell, Jr., for the plaintiff in error.
Mr. Robert D. Smith, contra.
This was an action on a policy of insurance against loss or damage by fire. Stinson, the plaintiff below, had a contract to build a hotel to be called the Webster House, at Marshfield, Plymouth County, Massachusetts, for the sum of $25,000, and had nearly completed it; but, failing to get his payments from the owner, he stopped work and took the necessary steps for securing a mechanic's lien on the building. For this purpose he filed the required statement with the town clerk, and commenced an action to enforce his lien within the period prescribed by law. Whilst that action was pending, in July, 1875, he procured the policy in question from the plaintiffs in error, the defendants below, insuring him for three months against loss or damage by fire to the amount of $5,000 on the building,—the policy stating his interest to be that of contractor and builder. The loss occurred during the continuance of the policy, and due notice was given. After the fire the plaintiff did not further prosecute his action to enforce the lien; but commenced the present action for the amount of his insurance. When the building contract was entered into, and until the loss occurred, the property on which the building was erected was subject to a mortgage for a debt of $17,000, being the purchase-money which the owner had agreed to pay to the former owner; and which is conceded to have been a lien on the whole property prior to that of the plaintiff. Two defences were made by the insurance company to the action: first, the failure of the plaintiff to prosecute his suit for enforcing his lien; secondly, want of insurable interest, from the alleged fact that the property, at the time of the loss, was not worth more than the amount of the prior mortgage. The court overruled these defences, and charged the jury substantially as follows, namely: that if the plaintiff had a valid builder's lien when the policy was effected, which could have been enforced by the decree of the appropriate court against the equity of redemption of the property, and if it was a valid and subsisting lien at the time of the loss, it was immaterial whether he did or did not subsequently perform those acts, the non-performance of which as conditions subsequent might have dissolved the lien.
The court further instructed the jury in substance that if the plaintiff had such builder's lien when the policy was effected, which could have been enforced by the decree of the appropriate court, and by virtue of which he could have recovered the equity of redemption on that property, then he was entitled to recover, without regard to the question what his equity of redemption might or might not have realized at an auction sale; that if a party has a valid and subsisting second security for a given amount, and he enters into a contract of indemnity against the destruction of that security, and a loss by fire occurs, both parties having full knowledge of the state of the property and the title when the contract is entered into, such insurance would cover that second security, although by the subsequent course of events the older and prior security might have swept away the value of the second; and that if the jury found in this case that this plaintiff had a valid claim for a given amount subsisting at the time of the loss, and which he had done everything that was required of him to enforce up to the time of the loss, and that it was such a claim, for instance, as he could have recovered a judgment for $5,000 or $6,000 or $8,000 and a judgment against that equity of redemption on that property, that was, for the purposes of this trial, an insurable interest, and an interest which he had on that property, whether by any course of events that property might have been by subsequent events more or less affected; and for the purposes of this trial the court instructed the jury to so consider it.
To this charge, and to the refusal to give instructions to the contrary, the...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Fidelity Phenix Fire Ins. Co. of New York v. Raper
... ... 176 ... The law ... as to violation of contract clauses of policies of insurance ... as to insurable interests of assured was fully considered and ... authorities collected in ... evidence is uncontroverted that the land belonged to ... Sloss-Sheffield Steel & Iron Company. It was by the ... latter leased to Mott Bradley, with condition for ... cancellation that it ... 1 ... Cooley's Briefs on Ins., 156; [Royal] Insurance Co. v ... Stinson, 103 U.S. 25, 26 L.Ed. 473." ... In the ... instant case, plaintiff claims that he ... ...
-
Rent-A-Car Co. v. Globe & Rutgers Fire Ins. Co., 46.
...Corp. v. Heft, 146 Md. 1, 13, 125 A. 772; Bakhaus v. Caledonian Ins. Co., 112 Md. 676, 691. 692, 77 A. 310; Royal Ins. Co. v. Stinson, 103 U. S. 25, 26 L. Ed. 473; Carpenter v. P. W. Ins. Co., 16 Pet. 495, 10 L. Ed. 1044; Columbian Ins. Co. v. Lawrence, 2 Pet. 25, 7 L. Ed. 335; Honore v. La......
-
Farmers' Union Mut. Protective Ass'n of Colorado v. San Luis State Bank
... ... State Bank, a banking corporation, assignee of one E. E ... Brown, to recover on an insurance policy issued by the ... Farmers' Union Mutual Protective Association, a ... corporation, ... to the plaintiff. The insurance company, under the policy ... issued to the cestui que trust, settled its loss in a manner ... agreeable ... Co. v. Lawrence, 2 ... Pet. (27 U.S. ) 25, 46, 7 L.Ed. 335; Royal Ins. Co. v ... Stinson, 103 U.S. 25, 27, 26 L.Ed. 473; Strong v ... Manufacturers', etc., 10 Pick. (Mass.) 40, 42, 20 ... ...
-
Aetna Casualty Surety Co v. Phoenix Nat Bank Trust Co of Lexington
...on to defend itself against claims of its depositor or to prosecute its own claims against the endorsers. Royal Insurance Co. v. Stinson, 103 U. S. 25, 26 L. Ed. 473. But it could not, as it has sought to do, retain its indemnity and withhold from its indemnitor the privilege of contesting ......