Pervangher v. Union Casualty and Surety Company

• Decision Date: 20 October 1902
• Citation: 81 Miss. 32,32 So. 909
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: MAZARA PERVANGHER v. UNION CASUALTY AND SURETY COMPANY

32 So. 909

81 Miss. 32

MAZARA PERVANGHER v. UNION CASUALTY AND SURETY COMPANY

Supreme Court of Mississippi

October 20, 1902

October 1902

FROM the circuit court of Warren county. HON. GEORGE ANDERSON Judge.

Mrs Pervangher, appellant, was plaintiff, and the casualty and surety company, appellee, was defendant in the court below. The suit was upon an accident insurance policy. The summons in the case was served upon one Moore, as an agent of the company. The defendant entered a special appearance, filing a plea denying that Moore was its agent. The facts are apparent from the opinion of the supreme court. The court below adjudged the service of the summons on Moore as ineffectual to give jurisdiction, of the defendant, and the plaintiff appealed to the supreme court.

Reversed and remanded.

Dabney & McCabe, for appellant.

By § 2327 of the code of 1892 it is provided that any person who solicits insurance in behalf of any insurance company or takes or transmits, other than for himself, an application for insurance or a policy of insurance to or from such company; or who advertises or otherwise gives notice that he will receive or transmit the same; or who shall receive or deliver a policy of insurance of any such company * * * shall be held to be the agent of the company for which the act is done or the risk is taken, as to all the duties and liabilities imposed by law. Section 2433 provides that in suits again insurance companies the process may be served on any agent. The two sections combined make the service on Moore good to obtain jurisdiction over the defendant company. In Sadler v. Mobile Ins, Co., 60 Miss. 391, this court decided that § 1065, code of 1880, which is brought forward in § 2327, code of 1892, converted into agents, upon whom process might be served, all who did the things named in that section.

If, in a case like that, where the Mobile Insurance Company was not engaged in business in Mississippi, but clandestinely issued a policy in the state, which was delivered through the hands of Gatman & Co., who did not continue to be their agents, it was held that the court acquired jurisdiction over the defendant, for stronger reasons would it be so where they were regularly located and regularly engaged in business, and had regular agents here, and afterwards withdrew from the state. A contrary construction of the law would enable insurance companies, whenever they had suffered a heavy loss, to draw out of the state, and force policy holders to sue them in the states where they are domiciled. The section of the code, 2327, was enacted to prevent this very thing. It was enacted to secure to policy holders the means of obtaining jurisdiction over these companies, who have no tangible property to hold them in the state, and who can take their flight any night and leave all of their policy holders absolutely without remedy. It was not intended that this should be done, and we submit to the court that in this case we had the right to proceed against this defendant by summoning the agent who issued and delivered the policy.

McLaurin, Armistead & Brien, for appellee.

Counsel for appellant says that Moore delivered the policy sued on though he may have, subsequent to the delivery of the policy and...