Messinger v. New England Mut Life Ins Co.

• Decision Date: 15 January 1894
• Docket Number: 35.
• Citation: 59 F. 529
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Pennsylvania
• Parties: MESSINGER v. NEW ENGLAND MUT. LIFE INS. CO.

59 F. 529

MESSINGER v. NEW ENGLAND MUT. LIFE INS. CO.

No. 35.

United States Circuit Court, W.D. Pennsylvania.

January 15, 1894

D. W Cox, Lorenzo Everett, and S. C. McCandless, for plaintiff.

A. A Leiser and Shiras & Dickey, for defendant.

BUFFINGTON District Judge.

This is a motion for a new trial. The suit was upon a policy issued by the defendant company for $15,000 upon the life of Joseph C. Raudenbush, of whom the plaintiff is administrator d. b n. By its terms the 'policy shall be void if the assured shall die by his own hand or act, whether sane or insane within three years from the date thereof; but the company agrees to pay upon the policy thus voided the net reserve held against it, reckoned according to the legal standard of Massachusetts.' The decedent died within three years. In defense there was offered and received in evidence a sealed release, executed by the former administrator, and acknowledging receipt of $755 23/100, 'in full satisfaction and discharge of all claims and demands under policy' aforesaid. In rebuttal, the plaintiff offered to show by the wife of decedent that Raudenbush had not committed suicide, but had died from a pistol shot accidentally inflicted by himself, and that the settlement had been mistakenly made by the administrator under the belief he had committed suicide. To this evidence objection was made and sustained, and the evidence was refused on two grounds: First, that the release could not be attacked in an action at law, but only on the equity side of the court; and secondly, that, if allowable on the law side, the evidence proposed was not sufficient to warrant the cancellation of the release under the facts of the case. Our conclusions were recited in binding instructions for the defendant, and we see no reason to question the action thus taken. That equitable relief must be sought on the equity side of the federal courts is a proposition too well established to require citation of authorities. That rescission or cancellation is the subject of equitable jurisdiction is equally well established. As the court said in Ivinson v. Hutton, 98 U.S. 82: 'Courts of equity have jurisdiction * * *. If the instrument was executed in ignorance or mistake of facts material to its operation, the error may be corrected, or the erroneous transaction may be rescinded. * * * Power to reform written contracts for fraud or mistake is everywhere conceded to courts of...