Opinion ID: 1711580
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Misrepresentation, Suppression and Conspiracy to Defraud

Text: In National States Insurance Co. v. Jones, 393 So.2d 1361, 1363-64 (Ala.1980), this Court held that a niece who paid the premiums on a health policy insuring her aunt and who would owe the expenses the policy was to cover had standing to sue the insurer for its fraudulent sales representations... made to and directed at the niece, even though the niece was not named as the applicant, the insured, the beneficiary, or the owner of the policy. Accord North Carolina Mut. Life Ins. v. Holley, 533 So.2d 497, 499 (Ala.1987). Factors important to this standing were that the insured ... was related to the plaintiff ..., the plaintiff occupied a special relationship with the insured ... and was involved in some degree in the application process [,] the plaintiff ... had assumed some responsibility for the care of the insured[,] ... the benefits payable under the policy... would have been beneficial to the plaintiff in paying any obligation arising out of the plaintiff's assumption of responsibility for the care or burial of the insured [,] ... and the plaintiff [had] paid either all of the premiums or some of the premiums. 533 So.2d at 499. Under the allegations of the complaint, the Newsons could prove such standing to sue the defendants for misrepresentation, suppression, and conspiracy to defraud committed in relation to the policies insuring the lives of James and Keyon. National States, supra ; North Carolina Mutual, supra. Therefore, we cannot, on the ground that the Newsons lacked standing to sue, affirm the dismissal of their claims for misrepresentation, suppression, or conspiracy to defraud relating to the policies insuring the lives of James and Keyon.