Strigas v. Durham Life Ins. Co.
| Decision Date | 06 January 1953 |
| Docket Number | No. 665,665 |
| Parties | STRIGAS et al. v. DURHAM LIFE INS. CO. |
| Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
Hines & Boren and Jordan & Wright, Greensboro, for plaintiffs-appellants.
I. O. Brady, Raleigh, and Hudgins & Adams, Greensboro, for defendant-appellee. DENNY, Justice.
Where an instrument is wholly in writing and the intention of the writer must be ascertained from the document itself, the intention of the writer as well as the effect of that intention is a question of law. Young v. Jeffreys, 20 N.C. 357; Spragins v. White, 108 N.C. 449, 13 S.E. 171; Silver Val. Mining Co. v. North Carolina Smelting Co., 122 N.C. 542, 29 S.E. 940; Wilson & Co. v. Levi Cotton Mills, 140 N.C. 52, 52 S.E. 250; Patton v. Sinclaire Lumber Co., 179 N.C. 103, 101 S.E. 613. And if the terms of a writing or contract are explicit, the court determines their effect simply by declaring their legal meaning. Wilson & Co. v. Levi Cotton Mills, supra.
Conceding that the son of the insured, George J. Strigas, was acting as the agent of his father when he wrote the notation on the letter of October 20th and forwarded it to the defendant, which notation the defendant admits in its answer it received and took no action pursuant thereto, it was insufficient, in our opinion, to constitute a request for extended term insurance under the provisions of the policy. The writing contained nothing more than a request for additional time in which to pay the premium or premiums that would fall due while the insured was on his trip to Greece. There is no provision in the policy for any such extension of time and the company was under no obligation to grant such a request. A request to hold is not the equivalent of a request to convert or to change. The word 'hold' means in its usually accepted sense, 'to maintain or sustain; * * * to possess; * * * to keep; to retain. ' Black's Law Dictionary, Third Edition. We do not think the language used by the insured to his son, or by his son to the defendant, is susceptible of being construed to be a request for a conversion of the policy from one type of insurance to another. Furthermore, if the insured had intended to convert his policy into extended term insurance under the provisions of option 3 in the policy, there would have been no necessity for the statement that he would settle when he returned. There would have been no debt or obligation to settle. A conversion of the policy, pursuant to the provisions of option 3,...
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