McCutcheon v. Rivers
| Decision Date | 31 October 1878 |
| Citation | 68 Mo. 122 |
| Parties | MCCUTCHEON v. RIVERS, Appellant. |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
Appeal from Jasper Common Pleas Court.--The case was tried before G. W. CROW, ESQ., sitting as Temporary Judge.
On the 13th day of October, 1874, defendant, as local agent in Jasper county, Missouri, of the National Insurance Company, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, issued to the plaintiffs a policy of insurance in that company, for which they paid him a premium of $37.50. Defendant immediately sent the money to the company in the regular course of business. On the 11th of the preceding September the superintendent of the insurance department of Missouri had issued a circular purporting to contain the names of all the companies authorized to do business in the State, among which was included this company; but on the 25th of the same month he had revoked its authority. Of the revocation, however, defendant had no notice until several days after he had issued the plaintiffs' policy and remitted the money, when he saw an announcement of the fact in a St. Louis newspaper. Whether this was an official announcement, or whether any official notice of the revocation was ever given does not appear by the record.
On the 24th day of August, 1875, plaintiff brought this suit to recover the premium so paid, charging that defendant had fraudulently placed the risk in this company. The instructions given by the court at the trial ignored the question of fraud, and declared the plaintiffs entitled to recover upon the facts stated. The court refused an instruction offered by the defendant to the effect that the plaintiff could not recover because the company's authority had not been revoked four weeks before the issuing of plaintiffs' policy, and notice of revocation had not been given in any newspaper published in St. Louis once a week or oftener, for four weeks before said date. Defendant claimed that this instruction was warranted by Wag. Stat., sec. 32 p. 772, which provides that when the superintendent of the insurance department shall become satisfied that the affairs of any insurance company are in an unsound condition, he shall revoke the certificate of authority granted to such company, and shall cause a notice of such revocation to be published once a week or oftener, for at least four weeks, in some newspaper published in the city of St. Louis, and the agent or agents of such company are, after such revocation and notice, required to discontinue the issuing of new...
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American Ins. Co. v. Smith
...void for want of consideration. Haverhill Ins. Co. v. Prescott, 42 N. H. 547; General Mutual Ins. Co. v. Phillips, 13 Gray 90; McCutcheon v. Rivers, 68 Mo. 122. And the burden of proof is always on the plaintiff to show a consideration. Noxon v. De Wolf, 10 Gray 343; Burnham v. Allen, 1 Gra......
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Hartman v. Hollowell
...benefit of the insured; and, if loss occurs, the agent must respond to the insured, and look to his principal for indemnity. See McCutcheon v. Rivers, 68 Mo. 122. contrary to this view may be found in Jones v. Horn, 104 Mo.App. 705 (78 S.W. 638), but the decision is based upon the failure t......
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Jones v. Horn
...hold that such policies are not invalid. See Ins. Co. v. R. Co., 149 Mo. 165, 50 S. W. 281. Plaintiff also cites the case of McCutcheon v. Rivers, 68 Mo. 122, in which an agent had received a premium for a policy from an insurance company whose authority to do business in the state had been......
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The Latham Mercantile and Commercial Company v. Harrod
...their duty to know whether the company they represented had complied with the laws of Kansas admitting it to take risks here. ( McCutcheon v. Rivers, 68 Mo. 122.) The cases sustain the doctrine of personal liability of insurance agents under facts similar to those in the case at bar: Landus......