Court Opinion

ID: 7969204
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-09-09 00:53:32.930303+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:34:43.748693
License: Public Domain

CANTY, J.
I concur in the first division of the foregoing opinion, but not in the second. I am of the opinion that an insurance agent who has authority “to receive proposals for insurance,” “receive premiums thereon,” “fix the premiums or rate of insurance,” and “fill up, countersign, and issue policies of insurance,” should be presumed to have authority to receive notice of loss, at least when no higher local authority appears to exist. Especially is this true of the highest local representative of an insurance company in so large and populous a county as Hennepin.
It is a matter of common knowledge that every insurance company depends largely (though perhaps not exclusively) on such agents to furnish it information concerning such losses. Every company doing a considerable amount of business in any locality, especially in a commercial center of any size, must have and always does have the assistance of its local agent in ascertaining the facts concerning the loss, just as much as they have his assistance in obtaining business or determining the character of risks. It is true that an adjuster is often and quite usually sent to examine into the facts and adjust the loss, but it is almost the invariable custom for the local agent to furnish the company all the facts within his knowledge, and all the *313facts which he can ascertain, immediately after he learns of the loss, and usually long before the adjuster comes upon the ground. Of course most of this information from the agent to the company is secret and confidential, but it is none the less within the scope of the agent’s duties to furnish it. These are things that everybody knows, and what everybody knows the courts should not refuse to know. These are duties which such agents usually perform. It should be presumed that such duties are within the scope of their authority, and if so it should be presumed that they have authority to receive information of such a loss from the insured and transmit it to the company, and that when such information is so received it is their duty so to transmit it.
As far as concerns the authority of such agents generally, there is no clear or well-defined line drawn between matters arising in connection with or accompanying the making of the policy and other matters, except as that line is being drawn by some of the courts. The line which the companies themselves have always drawn is the line between the right to receive and retain premiums and the right to refuse to pay losses. They always admit that their agents have authority to receive such premiums, and always deny that these agents have-any authority to waive any forfeiture whatever, whether arising before or after loss, whether arising in connection with the issuing of the policy or in connection with the giving notice of loss.
I am of the opinion that notice to the local agent was sufficient notice of loss, and that the retention by the company of the proof of loss subsequently sent it, tended to prove waiver of prior conditions, as well as performance of the condition requiring such proof of loss.