Oakes v. Manufacturers' Fire &Amp; Marine Insurance Company

• Court: Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts
• Writing for the Court: Colt, J.
• Citation: Oakes v. Manufacturers' Fire &Amp; Marine Insurance Company, 131 Mass. 164 (Mass. 1881)
• Decision Date: 11 April 1881
• Parties: Charles T. Oakes v. Manufacturers' Fire & Marine Insurance Company

131 Mass. 164

Charles T. Oakes v. Manufacturers' Fire & Marine Insurance Company

Supreme Court of Massachusetts

April 11, 1881

Argued November 9, 1880

Suffolk. Contract upon a policy of insurance against fire. Trial in the Superior Court, before Bacon, J., who ruled that the plaintiff was entitled to recover, and directed a verdict accordingly. The defendant alleged exceptions, which appear in the opinion.

Exceptions sustained.

A. S Wheeler & E. W. Hutchins, for the defendant.

J. F Andrew, for the plaintiff.

Colt, J. Lord, Soule & Field, JJ., absent.

OPINION

Colt, J.

The plaintiff seeks to recover upon a fire insurance policy containing a provision that it shall become void if the insured premises are "sold or conveyed in whole or in part." The plaintiff conveyed the whole by warranty deed, with release of dower, to one Davis, who, at the same time and as part of the same transaction, conveyed it to the plaintiff's wife. And the question is whether the policy was thereby avoided.

It is contended that the plaintiff was at no time divested of his insurable interest in the whole property, because Davis had only an instantaneous seisin, and, after the conveyances, the plaintiff, being tenant by the curtesy, remained the owner of a freehold estate therein in right of his wife. Curry v. Commonwealth Ins. Co. 10 Pick 535. But the fact that the plaintiff did not lose all his insurable interest is not decisive under this clause in the policy. Its plain purpose is, not merely to affirm the common law rule, that when the interest of the assured ceases, the policy fails, but to protect the company against any sale or conveyance which may diminish the motive of the insured to guard his own property from loss by the risk insured against. It provides against a sale or change of title in whole or in part. And any change which produces such diminution of interest, if it is effected by a conveyance of any part of the property, clearly is sufficient to defeat the insurance. The word "property" as used in this clause means the subject matter of insurance, or the thing insured, as distinguished from the policy-holder's insurable interest in it. The rules which govern the interpretation of all other contracts govern in the interpretation of contracts of insurance. The fair meaning of the language used, as applied to the subject matter, is to be ascertained. It is the right of the company to secure protection to itself by preserving the relations of the insured to the property covered during the life of the policy, and by preventing others from acquiring an insurable interest which would expose the company to the dangers of over insurance. To this end it may fairly stipulate that any change...