Meadows v. Hawkeye Ins. Co.

• Decision Date: 26 September 1885
• Citation: 24 N.W. 591,67 Iowa 57
• Parties: MEADOWS v. HAWKEYE INS. CO.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

67 Iowa 57

24 N.W. 591

MEADOWS

v.HAWKEYE INS. CO.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Filed September 26, 1885.

Appeal from Ringgold district court.

This is an appeal by defendant from an order of the district court overruling a motion for judgment. The material facts are stated in the opinion.R. W. Barger, for appellant, Hawkeye Ins. Co.

Henry & Spencer and Laughlin & Campbell, for appellee, W. N. Meadows.

REED, J.

Plaintiff brought this action on a policy of insurance. Defendant answered, admitting the execution of the contract by alleging that it contained a provision that the commencement of foreclosure or other proceeding upon any mortgage, lien, or incumbrance of any kind, or of any suit or action in any court concerning the title in anywise, should immediately render the policy void, and that, subsequent to the execution of the policy, foreclosure proceedings were commenced on a mortgage covering the property insured. To this answer plaintiff filed a reply, in one paragraph of which he denied its averments, and in another paragraph he admitted said allegations and pleaded certain matter in avoidance. On the trial of the issue thus formed, plaintiff introduced the policy, and certain evidence which tended to prove the destruction of the insured property, and the damages occasioned thereby, and rested. Defendant then filed a motion to direct the jury to return a verdict for it, on the ground that the facts constituting the affirmative defense pleaded in the answer were admitted by the reply, and there was no evidence tending to prove the matter pleaded in avoidance. This motion was overruled, and defendant, electing to stand on this ruling, a verdict was returned for plaintiff, and judgment rendered thereon, from which defendant appealed to this court. On the hearing of that appeal the judgment was reversed, on the ground that the court erred in overruling said motion. See Meadows v. Hawkeye Ins. Co., 62 Iowa, 387;S. C. 17 N. W. Rep. 600. Defendant then filed in this court a motion for final judgment in its favor, on the ground that, upon the facts proven in the case, it was entitled to such judgment. This motion was overruled, and procedendo was issued in the usual form directing the district court to proceed in the manner required by law in harmony with the opinion of this court. When the case was again reached in the district court, counsel for plaintiff stated that they did not desire to file any amendment or additional pleading. Defendant thereupon filed a motion for judgment on the ground that, by its motion to direct a verdict filed at the former trial, it fully admitted every fact which plaintiff's evidence tended to prove, and upon those facts it was determined by the judgment of this court that plaintiff was not entitled to recover. This motion was overruled by the district court, and it is from that order that the present appeal is prosecuted.

Defendant's first position is that by its motion to direct a verdict in its favor on the trial of the cause, at the conclusion of plaintiff's evidence, it admitted every fact which the evidence introduced by plaintiff tended to prove. The correctness of this position is settled by the former adjudications of this court. See Stone v. Chicago & N. W. R. Co., 47 Iowa, 82;Muldowney v. Illinois Cent. R. Co., 32...