Nat'l Accident & Health Ins. Co v. Davis
| Decision Date | 15 January 1935 |
| Docket Number | No. 23413.,23413. |
| Parties | NATIONAL ACCIDENT & HEALTH INS. CO. v. DAVIS. |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
Syllabus by the Court.
1. An application for insurance which contains false answers that are material to the risk, Inserted by the agent of the company issuing the policy but under such circumstances as do not prevent the signer from being bound thereby, which said application is attached to and made a part of the policy issued, does not, where the application itself expressly limits the authority of the agent taking it, constitute such notice to the company issuing the policy as amounts to notice and estoppel on its part. The applicant, by the receipt of and reliance on the policy, is estopped from pleading or proving the fraud of the agent in taking the application and making the false answers; the application containing the provision "that the company is not bound by any knowledge of or statements by or to any agent unless written thereon."
2. Where an application is signed in blank and authority given by applicant to the agent of the company to fill out the application from information given him, any false answers inserted in the application which is attached to and made a part of the policy issued, unless inserted by a misleading device or artifice perpetrated by such agent, will be binding on the applicant. He who can read must read, and is bound by a writing signed by himself, unless such signature was procured through fraud.
3. Where the insured, as in this case, had notice of the limitations on the agent's authority and signed an application without reading it, he placed it in the power of the agent to commit a fraud by inserting false answers in the application which was made a part of the policy of insurance issued and delivered to him and on which he relied. In such a case he is estopped from pleading or proving the fraud of the agent in the insertion of the false answers.
4. Under the above principles, the evidence did not support the verdict, and the court erred in overruling the motion for a new trial.
Error from Municipal Court of Atlanta; Clarence Bell, Judge.
Suit by Rufus A. Davis against the National Accident & Health Insurance Company. Judgment for plaintiff, defendant's motion for a new trial was overruled, and defendant brings error.
Reversed.
Conforming to answers of the Supreme Court to certified questions in 176 S. E. 387.
Cotterill, Hopkins, Bryan & Ward, of Atlanta, for plaintiff in error.
Douglas, Douglas & Andrews, of Atlanta, for defendant in error.
Rufus A. Davis brought suit against the National Accident & Health Insurance Company on a certain policy of insurance which insured against sickness. The suit was defended on the ground, among others, that the defendant was not entitled to recover for the reason that the plaintiff had made false answers material to the risk in his application for such insurance, in that he had answered falsely with reference to whether or not he had had medical treatment within the last ten years, and as to the existence of other insurance of a like kind. There is no contention that the answers were not material and that the answer as to other insurance was not false. The application which was attached to and made a part of the policy contained the provision that the right to recover thereunder would be barred in the event any of the answers made therein were false and that "the company is not bound by any knowledge of or statements made by or to any agent unless written hereon." The whole case hinges on the construction to be placed on the evidencein reference to the filling out and signing of the application. The plaintiff's evidence showed that he was approached by the agent of the defendant company with reference to taking out this...
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National Acc. & Health Ins. Co. v. Davis
...178 S.E. 320 50 Ga.App. 391 NATIONAL ACCIDENT & HEALTH INS. CO. v. DAVIS. No. 23413.Court of Appeals of Georgia, First DivisionJanuary 15, 1935 ... Syllabus ... by the ... ...