Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/246/357/
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 04:42:51+00:00

Document:
A law of a state, governing a life insurance contract made locally between a resident citizen and a locally licensed foreign corporation and prescribing how the net value of the policy shall be applied to avoid forfeiture if the premium be not paid, cannot be extended so as to prevent the policyholder, while present in such state, and the company from making and carrying out a subsequent, independent agreement in the company's home state, pursuant to its laws, whereby the policy is pledged as security for a loan and afterwards cancelled in satisfaction of the indebtedness.
Such attempt to engraft the law of the policy upon, the subsequent contract, so that the insurance shall remain enforceable in the courts of the state where the policy was issued without regard to its termination in satisfaction of the loan, is an invasion of the citizen's liberty of contract under the Fourteenth Amendment, and cannot be sustained through the license to the foreign corporation.
A life insurance policy, issued in Missouri to a resident and citizen of Missouri by a New York corporation with Missouri license provided that the insured might obtain cash loans on the security of the policy on application at the company's home office, subject to the terms of its loan agreement, and that any indebtedness to the company should be deducted in any settlement of the policy or of any benefit thereunder. Held that this imposed no obligation on the company to make a loan subject to a Missouri nonforfeiture law governing the policy and devoting three-fourths of its net value to satisfaction of premium indebtedness exclusively and extension of the insurance in case of default.
Upon application, based on such a policy, addressed to the company at New York, accompanied by a loan agreement, both signed by the insured and beneficiary in Missouri, where both were resident citizens, and forwarded, with pledge of the policy as security, through the company's Missouri agent, and all received and accepted at its home office in New York, a loan was made, the amount being remitted by mail to the insured in Missouri in the form of the company's check on a New York bank payable to his order. The agreement declared in substance that it was made and to be performed entirely in New York under New York laws. Under it, in accordance with those laws, the pledge was foreclosed and the reserve of the policy extinguished in satisfying the loan. Held that the agreement was a valid New York contract, independent of the policy, and that the foreclosure was a defense to an action on the policy in the courts of Missouri, notwithstanding a Missouri nonforfeiture statute (Rev.Stats. 1899, 7897), devoting three-fourths of the net value to payment of premium indebtedness exclusively and in extension of the insurance, was there construed as continuing the insurance in force.
Defendant in error brought suit January 27, 1915, in Circuit Court, Phelps County, Missouri, upon a policy dated October 20, 1900, on life of her husband Josiah B Dodge, who died February 12, 1912. She alleged that plaintiff in error, a New York corporation, had long maintained local offices and carried on the business of life insurance in Missouri, where she and her husband resided; that, in 1900, at St. Louis, he applied for and received the policy, she being named as beneficiary; that premiums were paid to October 20, 1907, when the policy lapsed, having then a net value, three-fourths of which, less "indebtedness to the company given on account of past premium payments" applied as required by the Missouri nonforfeiture statute (§ 7897), sufficed to extend it beyond assured's death. Further, that, upon application by assured and herself presented at St. Louis, the company there made him loans amounting, October 20, 1907, to $1,350, but of this only $599.65 had been applied to premiums. She asked judgment for full amount of policy less loan, unpaid premiums, interest, etc.
the loan, and all obligation ceased. The assured, being duly notified, offered no objection. It further set up that, as the loan, pledge, and foreclosure were within New York, the federal Constitution protected them against inhibition or modification by a Missouri statute, and, if intended to produce such result, § 7897, Rev.Stats. Mo. 1899, lacked validity.
In reply, defendant in error denied assent to alleged settlement, maintained all transactions in question took place in Missouri, and asserted validity of its applicable statutes.
The Springfield Court of Appeals affirmed a judgment for $2,233.45 amount due after deducting loan, unpaid premiums, etc. 189 S.W. 609. It declared former opinions of the state supreme court conclusively settled the constitutionality of § 7897, and that the reserve, after paying advances for premiums, was thereby appropriated to purchasing term insurance, notwithstanding any contrary agreement. Burridge v. Insurance Co., 211 Mo. 158; Smith v. Mut. Ben. Life Ins. Co., 173 Mo. 329. Effort to secure a review by the Supreme Court failed.
shall be taken as a net single premium for temporary insurance for the full amount written in the policy. . . ."
"Cash loans can be obtained by the insured on the sole security of this policy on demand at any time after this policy has been in force two full years, if premiums have been duly paid to the anniversary of the insurance next succeeding the date when the loan is made. Application for any loan must be made in writing to the home office of the company, and the loan will be subject to the terms of the company's loan agreement. The amount of loan available at any time is stated below, and includes any previous loan then unpaid. Interest will be at the rate of five percent per annum in advance."
unless otherwise agreed in writing, but may be paid to an agent producing receipts signed by one of the above-named officers and countersigned by the agent. If any premium is not paid on or before the day when due or within the month of grace, the liability of the company shall be only as hereinbefore provided for such case. . . . Any indebtedness to the company, including any balance of the premium for the insurance year remaining unpaid will be deducted in any settlement of this policy or of any benefit thereunder."
"New York Life Insurance Company, 346 & 348 Broadway, New York:"
"Application is hereby made for a cash loan of $1,350.00 on the security of the above policy, issued by the New York Life Insurance Company on the life of Josiah B. Dodge, subject to the terms of said company's loan agreement. "
"Said policy is forwarded herewith for deposit with said company as collateral security, together with said company's loan agreement duly signed in duplicate."
"Josiah B. Dodge. Leo F. Dodge."
"Forwarded from Missouri Clearing House, Branch Office Nov. 9, 1906. M. F. Bayard, Cashier."
"Pursuant to the provisions of policy No. 2054961, issued by the New York Life Insurance Company on the life of Josiah B. Dodge, the undersigned has this day obtained a cash loan from said company of the sum of thirteen hundred fifty dollars ($1,350.00), the receipt of which is hereby acknowledged, conditioned upon pledging as collateral said policy with said company as sole security for said loan and giving assent to the terms of this policy loan agreement; therefore:"
"In consideration of the premises, the undersigned hereby agree as follows:"
"1. To pay said company interest on said loan at the rate of five percent per annum, payable in advance from this date to the next anniversary of said policy, and annually in advance on said anniversary and thereafter."
"2. To pledge, and do hereby pledge, said policy as sole security for the payment of said loan and interest and herewith deposit said policy with said company at its home office."
"3. To pay said company said sum when due with interest, reserving, however, the right to reclaim said policy by repayment of said loan with interest at any time before due, said repayment to cancel this agreement without further action."
"4. That said loan shall become due and payable --"
on said loan is not paid on the date when due, in which event said pledge shall, without demand or notice of any kind, every demand and notice being hereby waived, be foreclosed by satisfying said loan in the manner provided in said policy;"
"(b) Or (1) on the maturity of the policy as a death claim or an endowment; (2) on the surrender of the policy for a cash value; (3) on the selection of a discontinuing option at the end of any dividend period. In any such event, the amount due on said loan shall be deducted from the sum to be paid or allowed under said policy."
"5. That the application for said loan was made to said company at its home office in the City of New York, was accepted, the money paid by it, and this agreement made and delivered there; that said principal and interest are payable at said home office, and that this contract is made under and pursuant to the laws of the State of New York, the place of said contract being said home office of said company."
"In witness whereof, the said parties hereto have hereunto set their hands and affixed their seals this eighth day of November, 1906."
"Josiah B. Dodge. [L. S.] Leo F. Dodge. [L. S.]"
"Signed and sealed in presence of Geo. T. Lewis."
"Forwarded from Missouri Clearing House, Branch Office, Nov. 9, 1906. M. F. Bayard, Cashier."
"New York Life Insurance Company, 346 & 348 Broadway, New York"
an amount sufficient to pay present loan and prem. and int. to Oct., '07."
"Josiah B. Dodge Leo F. Dodge"
"Forwarded from Missouri Clearing House, Branch Office, Nov. 9, 1906. M. F. Bayard, Cashier"
"New York, December 17th, 1907."
"Mr. Josiah B. Dodge, 4952 Maryland Ave., St. Louis, Mo."
"Dear Sir: By a loan agreement executed on the 8th day of November, 1906, the above policy on the life of Josiah B. Dodge was pledged to and deposited with the New York Life Insurance Company as collateral security for a cash loan of $1,350.00."
"The premium and interest due on said policy on the 20th day of October, 1907, not having been paid, the principal of said loan became due and has been settled according to the terms of the policy, and the policy has no further value."
"Yours truly, John C. McCall, Secretary, by E. M. C."
This was received by assured December 19, 1907, and neither he nor the beneficiary, during his life, offered objection to the action taken.
That the policy, when issued to Dodge, became a Missouri contract, subject to its statutes so far as valid and applicable, is undisputed and clear. The controlling doctrine in that regard was announced and applied in Equitable Life Assurance Society v. Clements, 140 U. S. 226, New York Life Ins. Co. v. Cravens, 178 U. S. 389, and Northwestern Life Insurance Co. v. Riggs, 203 U.S.
243. In each of those cases, the controversy related to the interpretation and effect of an original policy, not a later good faith agreement between the parties. We held that, to the extent there stated, the state had power to control insurance contracts made within its borders. With those conclusions we are now entirely content, but they do not rule the question presently presented. Here, the controversy concerns effect of the state statute upon agreements between the parties made long after date of the policy and action taken thereunder; their essential fairness and accordance with New York laws are not challenged.
Considering the circumstances recited above, we think competent parties consummated the loan contract now relied upon in New York where it was to be performed. And, moreover, that it is one of a kind which ordinarily no state by direct action may prohibit a citizen within her borders from making outside of them. It should be noted that the clause in the policy providing "cash loans can be obtained by the insured on the sole security of this policy on demand, etc.," certainly imposed no obligation upon the company to make such a loan if the Missouri statute applied and inhibited valid hypothecation of the reserve as security therefor, as defendant in error maintains. She cannot, therefore, claim anything upon the theory that the loan contract actually consummated was one which the company had legally obligated itself to make upon demand.
"The mere fact that a citizen may be within the limits of a particular state does not prevent his making a contract outside its limits while he himself remains within it,"
that, under the Fourteenth Amendment, the right to contract outside for insurance on property within a state is one which cannot be taken away by state legislation. So to contract is a part of the liberty guaranteed to every citizen. The doctrine of this case has been often reaffirmed, and must be accepted as established. Nutting v. Massachusetts, 183 U. S. 553, 183 U. S. 557; Delamater v. South Dakota, 205 U. S. 93, 205 U. S. 102; Provident Savings Assn. v. Kentucky, 239 U. S. 103, 239 U. S. 114; Adams v. Tanner, 244 U. S. 590, 244 U. S. 595.
must be looked to, and was limited by the clear words of the statute 'to notes or other evidences of indebtedness to the company, given on account of past premium payments' on the policy issued to the insured, and did not include notes and evidences of indebtedness arising in other ways. It is not apparent, assuming the statute be constitutional, how, giving heed to the hornbook maxim, expressio unius, etc., any other conclusion could have been arrived at in reason. It was held furthermore, in effect, that such provisions of law evidenced a sound and just governmental policy, and wrote into every policy of life insurance, coming within its purview, a mandate not to be abrogated in whole, or hedged about or lopped off in detail, by policy provisions, nor to be contracted away otherwise than as prescribed by statute."
Treating the loan to Dodge as made under a New York agreement which Missouri lacked power directly to control, the question presented becomes similar in principle to the one decided in New York Life Insurance Co. v. Head, 234 U. S. 149. There, suit was instituted in Missouri upon a policy personally applied for and received while in that state by a citizen of New Mexico. Nine years afterwards, having duly acquired the policy in New Mexico, the transferee wrote from there to the insurer in New York and effected a loan under an agreement like the one now before us. The state courts held the policy a Missouri contract and the loan agreement controlled by its nonforfeiture statute.
and there destroy freedom of contract without throwing down the constitutional barriers by which all the states are restricted within the orbits of their lawful authority and upon the preservation of which the government under the Constitution depends."
"As foreign insurance companies have no right to come into the state and there do business except as the result of a license from the state and as the state exacts as a condition of a license that all foreign insurance companies shall be subject to the laws of the state as if they were domestic corporations, it follows that the limitations of the state law resting upon domestic corporations also rest upon foreign companies, and therefore deprive them of any power which a domestic company could not enjoy, thus rendering void or inoperative any provision of their charter or condition in policies issued by them or contracts made by them inconsistent with the Missouri law."
"proposition cannot be maintained without holding that, because a state has power to license a foreign insurance company to do business within its borders and the authority to regulate such business, therefore a state has power to regulate the business of such company outside its borders and which would otherwise be beyond the state's authority -- a distinction which brings the contention right back to the primordial conception upon which alone it would be possible to sanction the doctrine contended for -- that is, that, because a state has power to regulate its domestic concerns, therefore it has the right to control the domestic concerns of other states."
beyond them by direct inhibition, and applying the principles accepted and enforced in Insurance Co. v. Head, we think the necessary conclusion is that such a contract could not be indirectly brought into subjection to statutes of the state and rendered ineffective through a license authorizing the insurance company there to do business. As construed and applied by the Springfield Court of Appeals, § 7897 transcends the power of the state. To hold otherwise would permit destruction of the right -- often of great value -- freely to borrow money upon a policy from the issuing company at its home office, and would, moreover, sanction the impairment of that liberty of contract guaranteed to all by the Fourteenth Amendment.
"Sec. 7897. Policies Non-Forfeitable, When. -- No policies of insurance on life hereafter issued by any life insurance company authorized to do business in this state, on and after the first day of August, A.D. 1879, shall, after payment upon it of three annual payments, be forfeited or become void by reason of nonpayment of premiums thereof, but it shall be subject to the following rules of commutation, to-wit: the net value of the policy, when the premium becomes due and is not paid, shall be computed upon the actuaries' or combined experience table of mortality, with four percent interest per annum, and after deducting from three-fourths of such net value, any notes or other evidence of indebtedness to the company, given on account of past premium payments on said policies, issued to the insured, which indebtedness shall be then cancelled, the balance shall be taken as a net single premium for temporary insurance for the full amount written in the policy, and the term for which said temporary insurance shall be in force shall be determined by the age of the person whose life is insured at the time of default of premium, and the assumption of mortality and interest aforesaid; but, if the policy shall be an endowment, payable at a certain time, or at death, if it should occur previously, then, if what remains as aforesaid shall exceed the net single premium of temporary insurance for the remainder of the endowment term for the full amount of the policy, such excess shall be considered as a net single premium for a pure endowment of so much as said premium will purchase, determined by the age of the insured at date of default in the payment of premiums on the original policy, and the table of mortality and interest aforesaid, which amount shall be paid at end of original term of endowment, if the insured shall then be alive."
"Sec. 7899. Rule of Payment on Commuted Policy. -- If the death of the insured occur within the term of temporary insurance covered by the value of the policy as determined in § 7897, and if no condition of the insurance other than the payment of premiums shall have been violated by the insured, the company shall be bound to pay the amount of the policy, the same as if there had been no default in the payment of premium, anything in the policy to the contrary notwithstanding: Provided, however, that notice of the claim and proof of the death shall be submitted to the company in the same manner as provided by the terms of the policy within ninety days after the decease of the insured, and provided also, that the company shall have the right to deduct from the amount insured in the policy the amount compounded at six percent interest per annum of all the premiums that had been forborne at the time of the decease, including the whole of the year's premium in which the death occurs, but such premiums shall in no case exceed the ordinary life premium for the age at issue, with interest as last aforesaid."
of the police power, and, as insurance is not interstate commerce, the state's power in this respect is as great over foreign as over domestic corporations. Orient Insurance Co. v. Daggs, 172 U. S. 557, 172 U. S. 566; New York Life Insurance Co. v. Cravens, 178 U. S. 389, 178 U. S. 401; Northwestern Life Insurance Co. v. Riggs, 203 U. S. 243.
In 1900 Dodge, a citizen and resident of Missouri, applied in that state to the New York Life Insurance Company, a New York corporation, for a policy on his life in favor of his wife. The policy was delivered to the assured in Missouri, where the company had an office and was authorized by the Missouri statute to do business, and there the first and later premiums were paid, and, until his death, Dodge and the beneficiary lived and the company continued so to do business.
S.W. 609), and the supreme court of the state refused a review. The case comes here on writ of error under § 237 of the Judicial Code. The company asserts that the loan agreement was made in New York, and, relying upon New York Life Insurance Co. v. Head, 234 U. S. 149, contends that the state court, in denying full effect to that contract, deprived it of liberty, property, and equal protection of the laws in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.
First. Was the loan agreement in fact made in New York?
The policy was confessedly a Missouri contract. Dodge, so far as appears, was never out of Missouri. Physically, every act done by Dodge and the beneficiary in connection with the loan agreement, as with the policy, was done in Missouri: (a) they signed there the application for the loan; (b) they signed there the loan agreement; (c) they signed there the request upon the company to pay itself, out of the $1,350 nominally borrowed, the amount of an earlier loan with interest to October, 1907, and of the premium; (d) he delivered there (at the Missouri Clearing House Branch office) the policy given as collateral and these three papers, which were forwarded by that office November 9, 1906, and received in New York three days later; (e) he paid there the balance of the premium, $116.40 in cash, for the sum of $1,350, nominally advanced then, was insufficient to pay off the then existing loan with interest and the accrued premium. Throughout these transactions, the company was authorized to do business in Missouri and was, in these transactions, actually doing business there. International Harvester Co. v. Kentucky, 234 U. S. 579.
certain calculations and appropriate entries in the books and on the papers were made there. No money was paid then to Dodge. The nominal advance was less than the amount, including accrued premium, then due by him to the company, and Dodge balanced the account by paying in Missouri $116.40. In 1903, when a similar loan agreement was made, the nominal amount of the loan exceeded the sum due for premiums by $486.91, and a check for that sum was drawn by the company in New York and sent by mail from there to Dodge in Missouri. In 1904, a further check for $92.10 was sent from New York by the company to Dodge under a similar loan agreement. Under the 1903 agreement, the policy was delivered to the company, and it had remained in the company's possession at the home office. But when the loan agreement here in question was made, nothing was done in New York except to examine and file the papers and to make the calculations and entries. No discretion was exercised there by the company's official. By the terms of the policy, the company had already assented to the amount nominally advanced as a loan and to the rate of interest to be charged. The functions exercised by the officials at New York were limited to determining whether the calculations were correct and whether papers were properly executed and filed.
v. Clements, supra; Northwestern Life Insurance Co. v. McCue, 223 U. S. 234. Even if the loan agreement be treated as an independent contract, it should, if facts are allowed to control, be held to have been made in Missouri. But the loan agreement was not an independent contract; nor is it to be treated as a modification of the original contract. It was an act contemplated by the policy, and was subsidiary to it, as an incident thereof. What was done by the officials at the home office was not making a New York contract, but performing acts under a Missouri contract.
Second. What is the effect of the provision in the loan agreement that it shall be deemed to have been made in New York?
"that the application for said loan was made to said company at its home office in the City of New York, was accepted, the money paid by it, and this agreement made and delivered there; that said principal and interest are payable at said home office, and that this contract is made under and pursuant to the laws of the State of New York, the place of said contract being said home office of said company"
state in which the contract is actually made. Mutual Life Insurance Co. v. Hill, 193 U. S. 551, 193 U. S. 554; Knights of Pythias v. Meyer, 198 U. S. 508. Where the validity of a provision is dependent upon the place in which the contract is made, the actual facts alone are significant. Persons resident in Missouri who enter there into a contract which is specifically controlled by the laws of that state cannot, by agreeing that a modification inconsistent with the requirements of the Missouri law shall be deemed to have been made elsewhere, escape the prohibition of the Missouri statute. The fact that one of the parties to the contract is a corporation, and hence capable of having a residence also in another state, and that some acts in connection with the contract were done by it there, does not affect the result. The company although a foreign corporation, was, for this purpose, a resident of Missouri, or at least was present in Missouri. Barrow Steamship Co. v. Kane, 170 U. S. 100; Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Co. v. Actien-Gesellschaft, etc., 1 K.B. (1902) 342.
permission to do business within the state, and when the policy in question and the loan agreement were entered into, this statute was in existence and was, of course, known to the company. It has no legal ground of complaint when the Missouri courts refuse to give to the loan agreement effect in a manner and to an extent inconsistent with the express prohibition of the statute. The significance of the fact that this suit was brought in a Missouri court must not be overlooked. See Bond v. Hume, 243 U. S. 15; Union Trust Co. v. Grosman, 245 U. S. 412.
of citizens of other states. On the other hand, to sustain the contention made by the company in this case would deny to a state the full power to protect its citizens in respect to insurance, a power which has been long and beneficently exercised. For the power to protect will be seriously abridged if it is held that the State of Missouri cannot constitutionally prohibit those who are its citizens and corporations within its jurisdiction from contracting themselves out of the limitations imposed by its legislature, in the exercise of the police power, upon the contracts actually made within the state. And, unless it is so abridged, the Missouri nonforfeiture law, as applied to the facts of this case, cannot be held invalid.
Nor does Allgeyer v. Louisiana, 165 U. S. 578, furnish support to the company's contention. Allgeyer, a citizen and resident of Louisiana had made in New York, with a corporation organized and doing business there, an open contract for marine insurance to cover cotton to be purchased and shipped. Shipments to be covered were required to be reported by letter addressed to the company at New York. Allgeyer mailed in Louisiana such a letter addressed to New York City. A Louisiana statute made it a crime for anyone to do any act to effect insurance in any marine insurance company which had not established a place of business within the state and appointed an authorized agent upon whom process might be served. The insurance company there referred to had not been authorized to do business in Louisiana, and actually did no business there. Allgeyer was sentenced for mailing the letter. This Court held that the statute was unconstitutional as construed by the state court, because it denied to a citizen of the United States rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.
"In such a case as the facts here present, the policy of the state in forbidding insurance companies which had not complied with the laws of the state from doing business within its limits cannot be so carried out as to prevent the citizen from writing such a letter of notification as was written by the plaintiffs in error in the State of Louisiana when it is written pursuant to a valid contract made outside the state and with reference to a company which is not doing business within its limits."
The more elaborate discussion which preceded this paragraph makes clear the ground of the decision.
"In the case before us, the contract was made beyond the territory of the State of Louisiana, and the only thing that the facts show was done within that state was the mailing of a letter of notification, as above mentioned, which was done after the principal contract had been made."
outside and beyond the limits of the jurisdiction of the State of Louisiana, being made and to be performed within the State of New York, where the premiums were to be paid and losses, if any, adjusted. The letter of notification did not constitute a contract made or entered into within the State of Louisiana. It was but the performance of an act rendered necessary by the provisions of the contract already made between the parties outside of the state. It was a mere notification that the contract already in existence would attach to that particular property. In any event, the contract was made in New York, outside of the jurisdiction of Louisiana, even though the policy was not to attach to the particular property until the notification was sent."
"It was a valid contract, made outside of the state, to be performed outside of the state, although the subject was property temporarily within the state. As the contract was valid in the place where made and where it was to be performed, the party to the contract upon whom is devolved the right or duty to send the notification in order that the insurance provided for by the contract may attach to the property specified in the shipment mentioned in the notice, must have the liberty to do that act and to give that notification within the limits of the state, any prohibition of the state statute to the contrary notwithstanding. The giving of the notice is a mere collateral matter; it is not the contract itself, but is an act performed pursuant to a valid contract which the state had no right or jurisdiction to prevent its citizens from making outside the limits of the state."
power) impair the freedom of contract of a citizen of the United States, "it can prevent the foreign insurers from sheltering themselves under his freedom." Nutting v. Massachusetts, 183 U. S. 553, 183 U. S. 558; Phoenix Insurance Co. v. McMaster, 237 U. S. 63. The insurance company cannot be heard to object that the Missouri statute is invalid because it deprived Dodge of rights guaranteed to natural persons, citizens of the United States. Erie Railroad Co. v. Williams, 233 U. S. 685, 233 U. S. 705; Jeffrey Mfg. Co. v. Blagg, 235 U. S. 571, 235 U. S. 576.
In my opinion, the decision of the Springfield court of appeals should be affirmed.
MR. JUSTICE DAY, MR. JUSTICE PITNEY, and MR. JUSTICE CLARKE concur in this dissent.

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