Mutual Life Ins. Co. v. Boyle

• Decision Date: 27 September 1897
• Citation: 82 F. 705
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Kansas
• Parties: MUTUAL LIFE INS. CO. of NEW YORK V. BOYLE, Atty. Gen., et al.

82 F. 705

MUTUAL LIFE INS. CO. of NEW YORK V. BOYLE, Atty. Gen., et al.

United States Circuit Court, D. Kansas, First Division.

September 27, 1897

A. H Horton, Geo. J. Barker, J. W. Green, and E. F. Ware, for complainant.

L. C Boyle, David Overmeyer, David Martin, and J. C. Clemens, for defendants.

WILLIAMS District Judge.

The material averments in the bill of complaint filed herein are that the complainant, the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York, is a corporation duly organized and incorporated under the laws of the state of New York, having been organized and doing business since the year 1842; that its business, as its corporate name suggests, is that of life insurance upon the mutual plan; that it has been doing business in the state of Kansas as a life insurance company since the year 1866; that there are within the state of Kansas 3,300 citizens and residents who have taken out life insurance policies from said company, and that the aggregate of life insurance by said policies exceeds the sum of $7,000,000; that its assets on the 1st day of March, 1897 amounted to over $234,000,000, and its surplus over and above all of its liabilities amounted to over $29,000,000; that it carries on the life insurance business generally in all the states of the United States, and in many foreign countries and that it has in all the states and countries, including the state of Kansas, fully complied, on its part, with all the requirements of law of said states and countries for the regulation of the business of life insurance as transacted by corporations incorporated under the laws of the state of New York, and has also strictly complied with every act and requirement of the state of Kansas concerning life insurance companies incorporated under the laws of states other than Kansas, and with all the legal rules and regulations prescribed by the insurance department of the state of Kansas; that the business of life insurance depends for its ultimate success upon securing the annual contributions of a large number of patrons, and upon the continued satisfaction of such patrons with the manner in which the corporation transacts said business, and performs its obligations to its policy holders and to the public generally, and that the business of life insurance is peculiarly sensitive to the attacks of persons who appear to be in a position to have peculiar information concerning its proper transaction, and that in order for a successful life insurance corporation to give its members a proper distribution of dividends, thereby decreasing to them individually the cost of their business, it is necessary that the establishment of its business should be permanent, and that there should be situated within reasonable territorial limits general agencies or branches for the proper conduct of the business, and that it has been the successful experience of this company that by reason of its large expenditure of money, time, and skill in the creation of its agency plant, business connections, and good will of the state of Kansas, it has been able to maintain its high standing as a reliable and honorable life insurance company among the citizens of said state, and that the property of the company within the state of Kansas, consisting of its established agency plant, together with its business connections, patronage, and good will, was on the 1st day of March, 1897, of the actual value of more than $50,000; further, that on February 26, 1897, as has been its invariable practice and custom for more than 30 years prior thereto, it presented to McNall, one of the defendants herein, a statement signed by its vice president and secretary, and verified by their oaths, giving in detail, and in strict compliance with the laws of the state of Kansas in relation thereto, the condition of the company on the 1st day of January next preceding, and on the same day presented to Webb McNall, defendant herein, as superintendent of insurance, at his office in the city of Topeka, Kan., a report made under oath by the vice president of the company, a copy of the report required by the laws of the state of New York to be annually made by the company to the superintendent of insurance of the said state, and therewith presented a certificate of authority licensing said company to transact its business of life insurance in the state of New York, issued by the superintendent of insurance of said state on or about the said day, and prior to the 1st day of March, 1897, complainant tendered to said Webb McNall, as superintendent of insurance of the state of Kansas, all of the money and fees required to be paid to the said Webb McNall, as superintendent of insurance, by the provisions of paragraph 3336 of the General Statutes of 1889, and all other statutes and regulations enacted and imposed by the state of Kansas, being conditions prerequisite to the granting of permission by the said state to the complainant to carry on and transact its business of life insurance within the state of Kansas for and during the year 1897, and until the 28th day of February, 1898; that at the time above mentioned the said Webb McNall was the duly appointed, qualified, and acting superintendent of insurance of the state of Kansas, and, under the provisions of the laws of said state in relation to his office, was the duly authorized and constituted officer, and by said statutes and laws was required to issue to life insurance companies incorporated under the laws of other states certificates of authority, evidencing the permission of the state of Kansas that such life insurance companies were and should be entitled to transact their said business within said state for said period of time; and, further, that the said Webb McNall, defendant herein, pretending to act as such superintendent of insurance of the state of Kansas, and as the agent of said state in that behalf, disregarding his plain ministerial duty in the premises, refused and declined, and still refuses and declines to issue and deliver to the said company a certificate of authority, under the seal of the insurance department, evidencing the compliance of said company with all the laws of said state applicable to the defendant as a life insurance corporation incorporated under the laws of the state of New York, and refused and still refuses to accept the tender so made by the company of the money and fees required to be paid and accepted under the laws of the state of Kansas. Charges that said Webb McNall, in his actions in so refusing to issue said permit, was instigated by malicious, wicked, arbitrary, and capricious design on his part to oppress this company and deprive it of its property without due process of law; that the said Webb McNall well knew and had frequently publicly admitted, that said company was solvent, and had been solvent for a long time prior to said application, and that the said company had complied with all the laws, rules, and regulations enacted and imposed by the state of Kansas concerning said company, and that the sole cause of said arbitrary, wicked, and malicious assertion of authority on the part of the said Webb McNall was the purpose of compelling said company to pay to one Sallie E. Hillman a claim she pretended to have against said company for a large sum of money, to wit, more than $20,000, without her first obtaining any judgment of any court for the same. Makes a letter written by the said Webb McNall to the agent of the company a part of said bill, which letter is as follows:

'Topeka, Kansas, March 3, 1897.

'John E. Lord, General Agent Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York, Topeka, Kansas-- Dear Sir: Replying to your request for license to do business in this state for the ensuing year after you had filed your annual statement, and after your check in the sum of $100 in payment of fees had been tendered to this department, I will say that, on evidence satisfactory to this department, I am satisfied that your company has not dealt fairly with the plaintiff, Mrs. Sallie E. Hillman, in refusing to pay the death loss, and in the litigation of the same, pertaining to her deceased husband. Hence this department refuses to issue to the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York a license to do business in this state for the ensuing year. Your check in the sum of $100 is herewith returned.

'Very respectfully,

Webb McNall, Superintendent.'

Complainant further states, in relation to said claim of Sallie E Hillman, that there was presented to the complainant a claim by the said Sallie E. Hillman demanding payment by said company to her of the sum of more than $10,000, which it was claimed by said Sallie E. Hillman this company owed her on account of the issuance by the company to one John W. Hillman of a certain policy of life insurance. It alleges that the claim of the said Sallie E. Hillman, being false and fraudulent, was denied and refused, and thereafter, and during the year 1879, the said Sallie E. Hillman commenced an action at law in the circuit court of the United States for the district of Kansas against said company, to recover a judgment for said sum of more than $10,000; and it alleges that ever since said action at law was commenced the company has been in the orderly and peaceful litigation in said court of said claim, and that the said Sallie E. Hillman has never recovered a final judgment against this company for any part of said sum, and that her claim is at this time, and has been for more than 15 years, a disputed claim in the course of an orderly and proper litigation in said court, which said litigation is still pending and undetermined. It charges further that the damage and injury to the company will be irreparable, and that for such damage the company has...