Mississippi Valley Life Ins. Co. v. Neyland
| Decision Date | 07 April 1872 |
| Citation | 72 Ky. 430 |
| Parties | Mississippi Valley Life Ins. Co. v. Neyland. |
| Court | Kentucky Court of Appeals |
This action is for the recovery of ten thousand dollars, the amount of a policy of insurance issued to Cornelia A. Neyland upon the life of her husband, W. M. Neyland, by the Mississippi Valley Life Insurance Company.
The application was made to Hollyman, an agent of the company authorized to solicit insurance and to receive applications therefor, on the 8th of September, 1868. He on that day delivered to the applicant a receipt signed by one M. S. Myers, agent, termed a "binding receipt," which acknowledged that the first annual premium (the sum of three hundred and twenty dollars) had been paid, and stipulated that Neyland was "to be insured from the date of this receipt, in accordance with the provisions of the policies of said company, in case said application shall be approved and accepted by said company; the policy to be delivered when issued, and the amount, the receipt whereof is herein acknowledged, to be repaid to him in the event of said application being declined by said company."
The cash portion of this premium (one hundred and sixty dollars) was paid by the agreement on the part of the agent, Hollyman, to satisfy the company therefor, he being indebted to Neyland for legal services rendered by the latter; for the balance, it is claimed, a note was executed.
Hollyman failed to comply with this contract. On the 6th of November the application was received by Conklin, the general agent for the state of Texas, and by him at once forwarded to the principal office at Covington, Kentucky. On the same day he wrote to Neyland that Hollyman had been discontinued as agent of the company. On the 16th of November Mellon, another agent of the company, wrote to Conklin, expressing to him the opinion that Neyland had paid no money to Hollyman, and his belief that the "binding receipt" had been delivered in satisfaction of the agent's debt, and advised him to investigate the matter. On the 12th of the same month Neyland wrote to Mellon, forwarding to him the "binding receipt," claiming that he paid to Hollyman one half the amount of the premium and executed his note to the company for the balance, and asking, in case the company did not intend to ratify the contract of insurance, that his money be refunded and his note returned. This letter was forwarded to Conklin. On the 5th of December Neyland wrote to Conklin to the same effect. On the 11th Conklin answered Neyland, expressing his regret at the complication of matters growing out of Hollyman's conduct, and proposing to deliver the policy if Neyland would pay eighty-two dollars in money and execute a new note in lieu of the one Hollyman had failed to deliver. On the 7th of January, 1869, Neyland accepted this proposition, and requested that the receipt for the money, together with a blank note and the policy, should be sent to one Forwood, at Jasper, Texas, or to some one else, as Conklin might determine. Conklin forwarded the papers to Mellon, with instructions that they be sent to Forwood, if he was a proper person, and if not, to some one else. Mellon sent them to Forwood, and on the 21st of January this last arrangement was consummated by the payment of the eighty-two dollars in money, the execution of the new note, and the delivery of the policy. On the 24th of February, a little more than a month afterward, Neyland died.
The company defends upon several grounds.
1. It claims that Hollyman was not its agent at the time the application for the insurance was made.
2. Because Hollyman and Neyland combined to defraud it by falsely pretending that one hundred and sixty dollars of the first premium was paid in money, when in point of fact no money was paid.
3. That Neyland was fatally sick when the policy was delivered under the...
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