Ruggles v. American Cent. Ins. Co.

• Decision Date: 04 June 1889
• Citation: 21 N.E. 1000,114 N.Y. 415
• Parties: RUGGLES v. AMERICAN CENT. INS. CO.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

114 N.Y. 415

21 N.E. 1000

RUGGLES

v.AMERICAN CENT. INS. CO.¹

Court of Appeals of New York, Second Division.

June 4, 1889.

Appeal from supreme court, general term, Second department.

Action by James H. Ruggles against the American Central Insurance Company, upon an alleged contract of fire insurance. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals.

J. Stewart Ross, for appellant.

A. C. Aubery, for respondent.

BROWN, J.

The court properly submitted to the consideration of the jury the question whether there was a binding agreement for insurance between the plaintiff's broker and the firm of Sedgwick & Hammond. The testimony of the witness Barker was positive that the agreement was full and complete. Written application for the insurance, specific in all its details, had been filed with Sedgwick & Hammond, and the premium upon the risk was agreed upon, and there was evidence that the usage of the business was to extend a credit to the broker for the premium until the end of the month. As to the oral agreement, the evidence of this witness was that, after Hammond had shown to him the letter from the company appointing his firm agents, and had stated that he ‘would bind the risk, provided the company was not on,’ he said to Hammond, ‘It is understood that the policy is binding, provided the company is not on the risk,’ and Hammond replied, ‘Yes.’ Asked ‘when it was binding from,’ he answered, ‘From the 16th; from that time; from that conversation.’ If this evidence was to be credited, it justified the inference of a complete binding agreement from the date of the conversation. It was for the jury to draw the inference, and such a contract, if made, was a valid agreement for insurance, upon which a recovery could be had. Ellis v. Insurance Co., 50 N. Y. 403. A more serious question is presented as to whether the agreement thus made was binding upon the company. At the close of the testimony the counsel for the defendant asked the court to dismiss the complaint, upon the ground that it appeared that the letter appointing Sedgwick & Hammond agents for the defendant limited them against insuring special risks and risks within what was called ‘the shore line,’ which motion was denied, and to such denial defendant excepted. The court was also asked to charge the jury that the plaintiff's premises were within the shore line, and also, if the jury should find that the risk was a special risk, that the agents had no authority to bind the defendant and it was not liable. Both requests were refused, and defendant excepted to each refusal. The location of the ‘shore line’ was a disputed fact on the evidence. By the map called ‘Higginson's Map’ the plaintiff's property was within the line. According to the location of the line by other witnesses it was not. The determination of this fact, if it was a material one, was properly left to the jury. No question can arise on this appeal upon that branch of the case.

The request to charge that, if the jury should determine that the risk was special, the defendant was not liable, raised no other or different question than that presented by the motion to dismiss the complaint, as the risk was conceded to have been a special one, and the jury would have been bound so to find. The request was, therefore, equivalent to asking for a direction of a verdict for defendant. The point of the appellant's contention was that the court should have decided upon the letter which contained the agents' delegation of authority that they possessed no power to bind the defendant upon a special risk; and this question is the most serious one presented upon this appeal. It may be conceded that the commission of authority had not, at the time of making the agreement, reached the agents. It had, however, been mailed from St. Louis, as the letter of the secretary of the company, dated October 13th, refers to it as having been forwarded by mail on that day. It may also be conceded that it did not reach the agents until October 20th, the day after the fire, as Hammond in his letter to the plaintiff, under date of October 21st, speaks of the agents not having power to bind the company ‘until yesterday,’ and Sedgwick testified that the two letters introduced in evidence were the only communications they had received from the company with reference to their acting as agents prior to the fire, which occurred on October 19th. The evidence upon the question of power is, therefore, to be found entirely in the two letters last mentioned. The first of these letters bears date October 11th, and was written to Sedgwick & Hammond by Mr. Van Valkenburgh, a general agent of the company. In it he says: ‘If your appointment is confirmed, your jurisdiction will be the city of Brooklyn, outside the shore line; but we shall expect you to write no large risks for us until you know for certain that we are not on, through our New York office. As we are now on all Brooklyn specials of any size that we will write, please do not undertake to write any specials for us at present.’ The second letter was written by the secretary of the company from St. Louis, dated October 13th, and addressed to Sedgwick & Hammond. It states: ‘We take very great pleasure in forwarding to...