Source: http://supreme.nolo.com/us/299/178/case.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 23:57:02+00:00

Document:
In May, 1932, the John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company, a Massachusetts corporation, insured the life of Harmon H. Yates, agreeing to pay upon his death $2,000 to his wife. The policy was applied for, issued, and delivered in New York, where he and his wife resided, and they remained there until his death of cancer in the following month. Then his widow removed to Georgia, and brought, in a court of that state, this suit on the policy. The case was tried before a jury.
The Company contended that, since the contract was made in New York, the existence of liability thereon is governed by the statutes of that state. It denied liability upon the ground that answers in the application to the questions whether the applicant was then in good health, so far as he knew, whether he had ever been treated for cancer or indigestion, and whether he had had medical advice for any other disease or disorder during the period of five years prior to making the application were false, and that these were material misrepresentations.
policy, introducing § 58 of the New York Insurance Law, [Footnote 1] which, as construed and applied in Travelers' Insurance Co. v. Pomerantz, 246 N.Y. 63, 158 N.E. 21 and Minsker v. John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Co., 254 N.Y. 333, 173 N.E. 4, provides that the entire contract between the parties must be embodied in the policy, to which a copy of the application must be physically attached; that, when the insured receives a policy, it is his duty to read it or have it read; that, if an application incorporated therein does not contain correct answers to questions asked, it is his duty to have the answers corrected; that, in case a false answer to a material question is not so corrected, the applicant cannot recover even if able to prove that he gave to the Examiner the true answer; that the agent of the Company is without power to waive this requirement of the policy, and that the false statement in the application that the applicant had not received medical advice constitutes a material misrepresentation which avoids the policy. It was not denied that such is the law of New York.
"if a policy is issued with knowledge by the agent of a fact or condition which, by the terms of the contract, would render it void, the insurer will be held to have waived the existence of such fact or condition, and the policy will not be voided thereby."
thereon in the sum of $2,000; that judgment was affirmed by the Court of Appeals of Georgia (50 Ga.App. 713, 179 S.E. 239), and again by the Supreme Court of that state, two judges dissenting (182 Ga. 213, 185 S.E. 268). We granted certiorari because of the claim that the state courts had refused to give to the public acts of New York full faith and credit as required by § 1 of article 4 of the Federal Constitution.
Georgia of the New York statute in this case. Such is the argument.
to that effect had been embodied in writing in the policy. To refuse to give that defense effect would irremediably subject the Company to liability. Compare Bradford Electric Light Co., Inc. v. Clapper, 286 U. S. 145, 286 U. S. 160. Because the statute is a "public act," faith and credit must be given to its provisions as fully as if the materiality of this specific misrepresentation in the application, and the consequent nonexistence of liability, had been declared by a judgment of a New York court. Bradford Electric Light Co., Inc. v. Clapper, supra, at page 286 U. S. 155.
Laws of New York 1906, c. 326, § 16. Cahill's Consolidated Laws of New York (1930), c. 30, § 58.
Compare Johnson v. Aetna Insurance Co., 123 Ga. 404, 51 S.E. 339; Supreme Lodge Knights of Pythias v. Few, 138 Ga. 778, 76 S.E. 91; 142 Ga. 240, 82 S.E. 627; Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. v. Hale, 177 Ga. 632, 170 S.E. 875; National Accident & Health Insurance Co. v. Davis, 179 Ga. 595, 176 S.E. 387.
Compare Aetna Life Insurance Co. v. Dunken, 266 U. S. 389, 266 U. S. 393; Modern Woodmen of America v. Mixer, 267 U. S. 544.

References: § 58
 v. 
 v. 
 § 1
 v. 
 v. 
 § 16
 § 58
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v.