Northern Assurance Company of London v. Grand View Building Association

• Decision Date: 05 November 1906
• Docket Number: No. 40,40
• Citation: 51 L.Ed. 109,203 U.S. 106,27 S.Ct. 27
• Parties: NORTHERN ASSURANCE COMPANY OF LONDON, Plff. in Err., v. GRAND VIEW BUILDING ASSOCIATION
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

203 U.S. 106

27 S.Ct. 27

51 L.Ed. 109

NORTHERN ASSURANCE COMPANY OF LONDON, Plff. in Err.,

v GRAND VIEW BUILDING ASSOCIATION.

No. 40.

Argued October 18, 19, 1906.

Decided November 5, 1906.

Messrs.

Charles J. Greene and Ralph W. Breckenridge for plaintiff in error.

Messrs.

Joseph R. Webster, Halleck F. Rose, and Wilmer B. Comstock for defendant in error.

Mr. Justice Holmes delivered the opinion of the court:

This is a bill to reform a policy and to recover upon it as reformed. An action at law upon the same instrument, between the same parties, has come before this court heretofore. 183 U. S. 308, 46 L. ed. 213, 22 Sup. Ct. Rep. 133. In that case it was held that the plaintiff could not recover. The question before us at the present time is whether the supreme court of Nebraska failed to give full faith and credit to the judgment in the former case by holding that it was no bar to the relief now sought. (Neb.) 102 N. W. 246.

The policy was conditioned to be void in case of other insurance, unless otherwise provided by agreement indorsed or added; and it stated, in substance, that no officer or agent had power to waive the condition except by such indorsement or addition. There was other insurance and there was no indorsement. The plaintiff alleged a waiver and an estoppel. The jury found that the agent who issued the policy had been informed on behalf of the insured and knew of the outstanding insurance. But this court held that the attempt to establish a waiver was an attempt to contradict the very words of the written contract, which gave notice that the condition was insisted upon and could be got rid of in only one way, which no agent had power to change. The judgment based upon this decision is what is now relied upon as a bar. Metcalf v. Watertown, 153 U. S. 671, 676, 38 L. ed. 861, 863, 14 Sup. Ct. Rep. 947; Hancock Nat. Bank v. Farnum, 176 U. S. 640, 645, 44 L. ed. 619, 621, 20 Sup. Ct. Rep. 506.

Whether sufficient grounds were shown for the relief which was granted is a matter with which we have nothing to do. But the state court was right in its answer to the question before us. The former decision, of course, is not an adjudication that the contract cannot be reformed. It was rendered in an action at law, and only decided that the contract could not be recovered upon as it stood, or be helped out by any doctrine of the common law. If it were to be a bar it would be so, not on the ground of the adjudication as such, but on the ground of election, expressed by the form in which the plaintiff saw fit to sue. As an adjudication it simply establishes one of the propositions on which the plaintiff relies,—that it cannot recover upon the contract as it stands. The supposed election is the source of the effect attributed to the judgment. If that depended on matter in pais it might be a...