Sheffield Oil Mill v. Pool

• Decision Date: 17 November 1910
• Citation: 53 So. 1027,169 Ala. 420
• Parties: SHEFFIELD OIL MILL ET AL. v. POOL ET AL.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

53 So. 1027

169 Ala. 420

SHEFFIELD OIL MILL ET AL. v. POOL ET AL.

Supreme Court of Alabama

November 17, 1910

Appeal from Probate Court, Lawrence County; J. C. Kumpe, Judge.

In the matter of the settlement of the insolvent estate of Gabe Pool, deceased. The Sheffield Oil Mill and other creditors intervened, to have certain funds obtained from life insurance accounted for. From a decree overruling their contention, they appeal. Reversed and remanded.

Gabe Pool's life was insured in a certain insurance company for $5,000, and in another for $500; both policies being payable to his estate. His administratrix collected these sums, and on final settlement failed to account for the same except to state that they had been set apart as exempt to the widow and minor heirs of said Gabe Pool, deceased. Certain creditors contested the account, and sought to have the administratrix charged with these amounts set apart as exempt, and to have said funds put into the general corpus of the estate, and made available for the payment of creditors of the estate. This the court declined to do.

Almon &amp Andrews, for appellants.

Kirk Carmichael & Rather, for appellees.

ANDERSON J.

This appeal involves the validity of section 32 of the act of 1897, as set out in chapter 63 of the Code of 1896, but which did not become a part of said Code. This section was considered and upheld in the case of Rayford v Faulk, 154 Ala. 285, 45 So. 714. And we are called upon to overrule said case, upon the theory that said section 32 is violative of section 2, art. 4, of the Constitution of 1875. "Where the subject may be comprehended in the title the act should be upheld." Griffin v. Drennen, 145 Ala. 128, 40 So. 1016. The inquiry therefore is: Can section 32 be construed so as to be comprehended within the subject as set out in the title?

The title is as follows: "To regulate the business of insurance in the state of Alabama." Section 32 says "Any person may insure his own or her own life for the sole benefit of his or her estate, his wife or her husband, his or her children, or others, as shall be provided in the policy of insurance, and the sum or amount of insurance becoming due and payable by the terms of the application and policy shall be exempt from all creditors of the assured or beneficiary, and must be paid to the beneficiary so named in the policy, or his or her assigns." There can be little or no doubt of the fact, that to say how and to whom policies should and can be made would be cognate to the general subject of regulating insurance, but section 32 of the act in question goes much further than this. It makes all life insurance exempt, not only as against the debts of the insured, but as to those of the beneficiary as well. In other words, it exempts all funds derived from life insurance, regardless of amount, both from the liabilities of the insured and the beneficiary, and...