Metro. Life Ins. Co. v. Fuller

• Decision Date: 19 December 1891
• Citation: 61 Conn. 252,23 A. 193
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: METROPOLITAN LIFE INS. CO. v. FULLER et ux.

23 A. 193

61 Conn. 252

METROPOLITAN LIFE INS. CO.

v. FULLER et ux.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

Dec. 19, 1891.

Case reserved from superior court, New Haven county.

Action by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company against Austin B. Fuller and wife, for injunction and other relief. Case reserved for supreme court.

J. Halsey and H. Stoddard, for plaintiff.

J. W. Ailing and E. P. Arvine, for defendants.

FENN, J. For a proper understanding of this case a statement will be necessary. The plaintiff, a New York corporation, claims an injunction, restraining each of the defendants from prosecuting in any court in this state, or elsewhere, any claim growing out of certain alleged assignments to the defendants of claims against the plaintiff; from obtaining other like assignments; from transferring any interest claimed by the defendants by virtue of such assignments; and a judgment that the defendants are not, as to the plaintiff, the lawful assignees of any claim upon the plaintiff by virtue of said pretended assignments. Upon their application a temporary injunction was issued, which remains in force. The substance of the material portions of the finding made by the court below, which reserved the case, is that the plaintiff, in the prosecution of its business of life insurance, during the years 1872, 1873, and 1874, entered into separate written contracts, of a similar nature, to insure the lives of certain persons named in the pleadings, and of many others. Most of these contracts or policies of insurance ran for 10 years, but a few were for longer terms. In all cases, however, at the end of 10 years, there was due and payable to the insured a sura of money under what is called "the reserved dividend plan." At the end of this period of 10 years, from the date of the respective policies, the plaintiff, of its own accord, sent to each of the policy-holders so insured under said forms of policies, during the years named, circulars, in which the amount so due to such policy-holder was stated. No other information was given to policy-holders as to the amounts due except these circulars. Upon receipt of such circulars the policy-holders named in the pleadings, without other knowledge, inquiry, or investigation, and upon the supposition and belief that such statements were correct, filled in each case a blank left in the circular for such purpose, with the option to "surrender the policy for its present cash value,"asstated in the circular, and signed their respective names thereto, and returned the circulars so signed to the plaintiff. The plaintiff thereupon sent its checks for such stated sum as the said policy-holders, who, on receipt thereof, delivered up the policy, and also signed, and delivered to the plaintiff, a receipt previously prepared by the plaintiff, by tilling in a blank form used for that purpose, stating the sum received to be "in full payment and settlement and discharge of all claims and dividends, surrender value, or otherwise, under and by virtue of policy No.—." All of said circulars, policies, and receipts have ever since been in the possession of the plaintiff, between whom and the policy-holders no further communication ever passed. The defendant Austin B. Fuller resides in New Haven. He had been the insured, and his wife, the other defendant, the assured, under a similar policy, which had been litigated, resulting in the recovery of a very much larger sum than that stated by the plaintiff in its circular to be due. After the close of such litigation, and in the year 1889, he solicited and obtained assignments from the policy-holders named in the pleadings. He believed such cases to be like his own, and that there was more due under said policies. The assignments executed by the assignors, under seal, stated that such assignors, "for one dollar, and other good considerations," "do hereby sell, set over, transfer, and assign unto Harriet A. Fuller, of New Haven, Conn., all the claims, demands, and causes of actions which we, or either of us, have or may have against the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. of New York." No money was in fact paid, the real consideration and contract being expressed in a writing signed by said Austin B. Fuller, and delivered to each of said assignors, in which it is stated: "Said assignment is made upon the following understanding, namely: Said A. B. Fuller is to employ attorneys and counsel for the purpose of prosecuting said claim, in the name of said Fuller, and without any liability on the part of said [assignors,] to pay the expense, or any part thereof. If no recovery is had, the said [assignors] are not to make any claim against said Fullers, or either of them. But if the suit results in a judgment and recovery for the plaintiffs, then said A. B. Fuller will pay to [the assignors] one-half of such sum as remains to him after paying lawyers and other expenses. If said Fullers find it advisable to give up the attempt to prosecute the claim, then the right is reserved to reassign the said claim to former holder, whereupon their liability under this agreement will cease." These assignments were made to the defendant Harriet A. Fuller with her authority and consent, her husband transacting the business. She had no pecuniary interest in any of the assignments, but gave general authority to her husband to do what he pleased in respect thereto, in the hope that he, and through him his brother, who was a lawyer in New York, who had conducted the former litigation, would make some money. The plaintiff having in the complaint alleged that the policies had become of no binding effect, but had been fully discharged and satisfied, the defendants, to the first defense of general denial, added a second, alleging that the surrender of the policies and the receipts was fraudulently obtained by the plaintiff, and that the assignments to the defendants were made for the purpose of enforcing and collecting the claims of the several assignors against the plaintiff, by suits to be brought in court in the state of New York,"the state in which the plaintiff corporation was organized, and where it is located, and in which such assignments and contracts were lawful." The defendants also filed 41 counter-claims, each of which is based on one of said assigned claims, and they asked by way of equitable relief a cancellation of the receipts, given by their assignors to the plaintiff, an account judgment for the amount found due by said account, and $100,000 damages. They also asked the answer to numerous interrogatories, and filed a motion for the production of papers and for disclosure. Upon motion of the plaintiff, and against the earnest protest of the defendants, the court directed "that the issues made by the first defense be heard and determined before any other issue in said cause is tried." The motions aforesaid for answer, disclosure, and production were denied as not relevant to the issue presented by the first defense, and the ease, as presented to us upon reservation, was tried solely upon such issue.

Upon the facts found it is not possible for us to see how, under any view which may be taken, the plaintiff can be held antitled to the equitable relief claimed. Surely we ought not to be asked to assume those allegations of the complaint to be true, which the plaintiff neither proved, nor the defendants were permitted to disprove. If any presumption of full payment would naturally and ordinarily arise from the surrender of policies, and the giving of receipts in full, such presumption ought not to be invoked against a party who is forbidden to rebut it, or in favor of one who insists that the assignors' right to sue the plaintiff "is a question wholly irrelevant to our cause." The plaintiff explicitly says this "action is founded upon the theory that the defendants had no right to sue the plaintiff in respect to the policies of insurance, even if the assignors might have had some right in that respect." For manifest reasons especial emphasis ought not to he placed on the word "some" in the foregoing quotation, and the word "full" would have better harmonized with the claim of the entire irrelevancy of the assignors' right. But adopting the plaintiff's theory, and it is fatal to the argument which follows; for upon such theory the remedy at law would...