Case ID: la_165/html/0165-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "ST. PAUL, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

(115 So. 446)
    No. 28520.
    EXCHANGE NAT. BANK v. FIDELITY MUT. LIFE INS. CO.
    Jan. 18, 1928.
    
      (Syllabus by Editorial Staff.)
    
    Contracts &wkey;>328(l)— Obligor’s promise to pay assignee certain moneys on contracts on assignee’s procuring assignment thereof held binding, regardless of assignee’s- disposition of proceeds.
    Where an insurance company agreed to pay plaintiff certain moneys under contracts ex; isting between the insurance company and third persons, if the plaintiff would procure the assignment of such contracts, and agree to accept thereunder the insurance company’s determination of the amount due, held, in action by such assignee on its contract with the company, that an agreement made between the assignee and the assignors for assignee to -pay assignors a certain part of the proceeds of the contracts after the assignee had realized a certain sum was no defense since it was of no concern of defendant what the assignee did with the money on obtaining it.
    
      Appeal from First Judicial District Court, Parish of Caddo; J. H. Stephens, Judge.
    Action by the Exchange' National Bank against the Fidelity Mutual Life Insurance Company. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals.
    Affirmed.
    Barksdale, Bullock, Warren, Clark & Van Hook, of Shreveport (George H. Wilson, of Philadelphia, Pa., of counsel), for appellant.
    Wise, Randolph, Rendall & Freyer, Story & Phillips, and C. H. Lyons, all of Shreveport, for appellee.
   ST. PAUL, J.

This is an action for moneys accruing under two certain contracts with two of defendant’s general agents. It involves the interpretation of a voluminous correspondence between the parties, beginning with a letter from plaintiff to defendant, dated June 28, 1922, and ending with a letter from defendant to plaintiff, dated June 2, 1925; which correspondence, together with the documents annexed (exclusive of the photostatic copies of certain accounts, and of the contracts to which the correspondence relates) covers over 80 folio pages of the transcript.

I.

The contention of the defendant is that said correspondence evidences a mere offer on its part to extend to plaintiff a pure gratuity as a business courtesy; that it has in no way bound itself to plaintiff, and may recede from its offer at will. The contention of plaintiff is that defendant bound itself to pay over to plaintiff certain moneys accruing under two certain contracts, if it (plaintiff) would secure assignments of said contracts- from the original parties thereto, consent that certain payments should be made by preference out of what might accrue under said contracts, and accept without question defendant’s bona fide statements as to the amounts accruing thereunder ; thus relieving defendant of any obligation to render accounts to said original parties, and enabling it to continue the business involved in said contracts without the inconvenience and annoyance to which it might be subjected by the claims, real or imaginary, of the original parties to said contracts.

II.

The case was tried, argued, briefed, and submitted; and the trial judge, after considering the case for three weeks, reached the conclusion that plaintiff’s contention was well founded, and rendered judgment accordingly.

The judges of this court have also considered the case carefully, have read and studied the voluminous correspondence between the parties and the exhaustive briefs herein filed by counsel, and the conclusion of the court is that the judgment appealed from is correct.

III.

We will not go into details. The main, if not sole, complaint and dissatisfaction,of the defendant is based on the fact that, in securing the assignments from the original parties thereto, the plaintiff pledged itself to said parties to pay over to their creditors, and afterwards to them, the balance or surplus which might remain after plaintiff’s own claim and expenses had been fully satisfied. We do not think this violated either the letter or the spirit of the agreement between plaintiff and defendant. The latter has no interest whatever in what disposition plaintiff may make of any funds it may receive from defendant. And the fact of the matter is that the original parties to said contract have been eliminated, so far as defendant is concerned, as completely as if they had never existed; whilst plaintiff has become the sole party having any claims whatever against defendant, and has bound itself to accept without question defendant’s bona fide statement as to the amounts .accruing under said contract.

Thus the assignment by the original parties to plaintiff, which was intended to, and did, fix definitely their position towards defendant, was an outright assignment without reservation whatsoever, and the transfer by plaintiff- to defendant distinctly provides that:

’ “It is further agreed and understood by the parties hereto that all remaining credits and moneys due under the terms of the two aforesaid insurance contracts, as properly and legally determined by the said insurance company (italics ours), after the preferred creditors have been paid as above indicated, shall be paid by the said Mutual Life Insurance Company, of Philadelphia, Pa., to the said Exchange National Bank, of Shreveport, La.”

And this, after all, is a purely abstract proposition. Plaintiff has in fact accepted defendant’s statement up to date without question, which involved the only matters about which there was room for any controversy. Prom this time on it is only a matter of computing the fixed commission which may accrue on premiums paid upon policies taken out during the time of said original contracts; and that is mere routine work done .by skilled accountants with the same automatic precision and disinterested accuracy with which a bank bookkeeper enters the debits and credits of the day.

Decree.

The judgment appealed from is therefore affirmed.'