Parrott v. Guarantee Fund Life Ass'n

• Decision Date: 10 August 1920
• Citation: 224 S.W. 77
• Parties: PARROTT v. GUARANTEE FUND LIFE ASS'N.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

224 S.W. 77

PARROTT v. GUARANTEE FUND LIFE ASS'N.

No. 2628.

Springfield Court of Appeals. Missouri.

August 10, 1920.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Dunklin County; W. S. C. Walker, Judge.

Action by Ruth B. Parrott against the Guarantee Fund Life Association. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Reversed and remanded.

Ross J. Ream, of Kansas City, and Orville Zimmerman, of Kennett, for appellant.

Smith & Seed, of Kennett, for respondent.

STURGIS, P. J.

The defendant recovered a judgment on a $2,000 life policy issued by defendant, a Nebraska corporation, on the life of her husband. Defendant has appealed.

The insured died a few days less than one year and six months after the policy was issued. The first year's premium of $19 was paid by the insured giving his note, with security, to the local agent. This note matured about the time the second year's premium was due, and such note was then paid. There is really only one disputed fact in this case, and that is whether or not the insured, at or about the time his policy would end under the first year's premium, renewed or prolonged same by paying another half year's premium. If he did so, the policy was in force till November 1, 1918, and he died October 24, 1918. If he did not do so, the policy expired May 1, 1918, and was not a live policy at his death.

The policy gave the insured the option of making quarterly or semiannual payment of premiums after the first year. It seems that the note given for the first year's premium was payable to defendant's local agent, who took insured's application, and such agent settled with defendant in cash for such premium and retained the note as his own. It is claimed that, when this note came due in April, 1918, the insured paid same, and at the same time paid to such agent the further sum of "$8 or $9" in payment of the premium for six months longer. There is some evidence supporting this claim. One witness said he was present and aided the insured in obtaining $28 or $29, which he says the insured paid this agent in discharging the $19 note and in payment of additional premium. No receipt or other evidence of the payment of such additional premium seems to have been given. This agent, while admitting payment of the note, denies receiving any such payment of additional premium, and says he had no authority to collect premiums subsequent to the first year, and never did so in any case. He did not, of course forward any such premium to defendant, and defendant's records showed the policy lapsed after May 1, 1918. The plaintiff beneficiary, the insured's wife, admitted in her evidence that after May 1, 1918, the insured received repeated notices that the premium was delinquent, with requests to pay same and reinstate the policy. Her husband, the insured, did not read or write, and she read all his mail to him, and answered some of these letters for him, asking indulgence and promising to pay soon. She said these letters and notices from the company were lost, and, when purported copies were produced, she refused to identify them, and the court excluded them. She does not claim that she or the insured, at any time before his death, raised the claim that this premium was paid, though at least half a dozen notices of the delinquency were received, and some of them answered during the six months from May 1 to November 1, 1918.

The only other evidence of the payment of the premium covering May 1 to November 1, 1918, is a letter, dated October 16, 1918, purported to have been written by defendant to J. W. Starnes, the same witness who testified to seeing the premium paid to the local agent. The witness, it seems, had recommended the insured as a suitable insurance risk, stating that he had known him for several years. This letter reads:

"Mr. J. W. Starnes, Gibson, Missouri — Dear Sir: Will you kindly give us the address of Mr. David M. Parrott, Farmer, formerly of Gibson, whom you advised us in April, 1917, you had known for four years? The notice of the October premium on his policy No. 62506 has just been returned to us unclaimed, and we are very anxious to get in touch with him before November 1st, so that he will not permit the...