Nw. Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. Adams

• Decision Date: 13 January 1914
• Citation: 144 N.W. 1108,155 Wis. 335
• Parties: NORTHWESTERN MUT. LIFE INS. CO. v. ADAMS ET AL.
• Court: Wisconsin Supreme Court

155 Wis. 335

144 N.W. 1108

NORTHWESTERN MUT. LIFE INS. CO.

v.ADAMS ET AL.

Supreme Court of Wisconsin.

Jan. 13, 1914.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Milwaukee County; J. C. Ludwig, Judge.

Interpleader by the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company against William E. Adams and Ida M. Lincoln. From a judgment awarding a fund to Ida M. Lincoln, defendant Adams appeals. Reversed and remanded, with directions to enter judgment for appellant.

This is an action of interpleader. The question involved is as to the ownership of the proceeds of a life insurance policy on the life of one Foster D. Adams. The policy was issued June 21, 1881, and named as beneficiary “his wife, Ida M. Adams.” The insured then lived in the territory of Dakota, and the policy stated on its face that it was a contract made and to be performed in the state of Wisconsin. In November, 1893, a judgment of divorce was rendered by the district court of Hennepin county, Minn., dissolving the bonds of matrimony between Foster D. Adams and Ida M. Adams, and requiring Foster D. Adams to pay $1,250 in full settlement of all pecuniary obligations. Ida M. Adams thereafter married Charles F. Lincoln, and is the respondent in this action. Foster D. Adams died at Minneapolis, Minn., June 22, 1911; two or three days before his death he executed to the appellant, William E. Adams, an assignment of the policy and delivered the same to the appellant, together with the policy itself. The insurance company brought the money into court, and the trial court adjudged that it be paid to the respondent Ida M. Lincoln, from which judgment William E. Adams appealed.Bloodgood, Kemper & Bloodgood, of Milwaukee (Jackson B. Kemper, of Milwaukee, of counsel), for appellant.

George H. Katz, of Milwaukee, and McClellan, Hensel & Guthrie, of Muncie, Ind., for respondent.

WINSLOW, C. J. (after stating the facts as above).

Two questions are raised in this case, viz.: (1) Was the husband's right to assign the policy taken away by chapter 376 of the Laws of 1891? (2) Was the assignment in question void because executed in Minnesota?

The first question is answered in the negative by the decision in the case of Boehmer v. Kalk, 144 N. W. 182, not yet officially reported, and need not be further elaborated upon here.

[1] The second question demands careful examination. The policy in question was issued at Milwaukee and was payable by its terms at Milwaukee; moreover, it contained an express statement that it was a contract made and to be performed in the state of Wisconsin. There can be no doubt therefore that it was a Wisconsin contract, although both the insured and the beneficiary resided in Dakota. Presbyterian M. F. v. Thomas, 126 Wis. 281, 105 N. W. 801, 110 Am. St. Rep. 919. But it was assigned and delivered to the appellant in the state of Minnesota, and in that state the law is settled (contrary to the Wisconsin rule) that such a policy belongs to the beneficiary alone and cannot be assigned by the assured because he has no legal or equitable interest in it. Birge v. Franklin, 103 Minn. 482, 115 N. W. 278. The contention is that the assignment is void because executed in a state where the law does not recognize that the assured has any right to make such an assignment.

That the question is one involved in some difficulty must be admitted. That field of law which goes by the name of the conflict of laws is one of the most thorny and difficult fields to traverse. It is full of conflicting decisions, refined reasoning, and unsatisfactory results. Especially is this the case when the subject under consideration is a mere chose in action.

Approaching the question from the a priori standpoint, it would seem as if the laws of Minnesota could have no effect on the matter at all. The contract of insurance was from the beginning a Wisconsin contract and governed as to its validity and effect by the laws of Wisconsin. By those laws it became the property of the deceased when it was issued and remained his property notwithstanding the subsequent change of law in Wisconsin. Boehmer v. Kalk, not yet officially reported. That this vested property right could be divested or impaired even temporarily by the fact that the deceased was physically in Minnesota, whether for a long or short period of time, seems a proposition quite at variance with the principles usually applied to property and property rights; yet this is practically the position which the respondent must and does assume to sustain the judgment, and authorities are cited which seem at first glance to support it.

Before proceeding to consider these authorities, it will be desirable to state the exact facts appearing in the record which have a bearing on the question. As before stated, the contract of insurance was purely a Wisconsin contract. At the time of its execution and delivery the insured and the beneficiary were residents of the territory of Dakota. In November, 1893, at the suit of the deceased, Foster D. Adams, a decree of divorce was granted by the district court of Hennepin county, Minn. This would seem to be prima facie proof that he then resided in that state. The assignment bears date February 11, 1908, at Omaha, Neb., and runs to his brother, the appellant a resident of Deadwood, S. D. It was not delivered until about June 19, 1911, three days before the death of the insured and when both he and his brother were at the house of a sister in Minneapolis, Minn. There is no finding as to the residence or domicile of the insured after the divorce in 1893. The evidence, however, shows without dispute that for some time prior to February, 1911 (for what length of time does not appear), the insured was manager of the southern division of the American Express Company and remained such manager until his death with his headquarters at St. Louis, Mo.; that he was ill and not in active duty from February, 1911, until the time of his death in the following June; that during that absence he was at Los Angeles, Cal., for a part of the time and a part of the time at Monrovia, a suburb of Los Angeles; that at this last-named place his sister (at whose home he died) and his brother, the appellant, were with him, and all three went to Minneapolis together a week or ten days before the death of the insured, and apparently in anticipation of that death; that during this time the insured telegraphed to St. Louis for his private papers, including this policy, and was apparently arranging his business affairs, and as part of that arrangement delivered the assignment and the policy to his brother, the appellant, who was still a resident of South Dakota and who took the policy and assignment with him to that state after the death of the insured.

[2] The conclusion seems irresistible that the insured was not domiciled in nor a resident of Minnesota at the time of his death, but was there merely temporarily that he might have the care of his sister in his illness. The case therefore is the case of the assignment of an insurance policy by an assignor domiciled in Missouri to an assignee domiciled in South...