Case ID: mass_82/html/0165-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Metcalf, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Washington County Mutual Insurance Company vs. Samuel Chamberlain.
    In an action by a foreign mutual insurance company to recover assessments upon a deposit note, if the answer denies that the plaintiffs’ agent deposited with the treasurer of the Commonwealth a copy of their charter, as required by the Rev. Sts. c. 31, § 41, before the execution of the policy which was the consideration of the note, the burden is upon the company to prove a compliance with the statute, and is not sustained by a certificate of the treasurer that such a copy was deposited with him in a certain year, without showing that it was before the day of the date of the note.
    Action of contract by a mutual fire insurance company, incorporated in the State of New York, to recover assessments upon a deposit note. Trial in the superior court before Wilkinson, J. who directed a verdict for the defendant. The plaintiffs’ alleged exceptions, so much of which as is material to the point decided is stated in the opinion.
    
      E. Mellen & E. B. Stoddard, for the plaintiffs.
    
      C. Devens, Jr. & G. F. Hoar, for the defendant.
   Metcalf, J.

The defendant denies, in his answer, that Gillet, the plaintiffs’ agent, deposited with the state treasurer, as required by the Rev. Sts. c. 37, § 41, a copy of their charter, before the execution of the policy which was the consideration of the note on which they now sue for assessments. It was therefore a prerequisite to their recovery, that they should prove the fact which the answer denies. The plaintiffs made the policy under their new charter, which they have not shown to have been previously deposited in the treasurer’s office. The treasurer certifies only that it was filed there in the year 1850. But the court cannot legally infer, from this certificate, that it was filed before March 21st 1850, which is the day of the date of the note. The burden is on the plaintiffs to prove a compliance with the requisitions of the statutes. This burden they have not sustained. Exceptions overruled-