Court Opinion

ID: 9636611
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 14:35:18.636131+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:47.312889
License: Public Domain

WILBUR, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
I concur in the conclusion that plaintiffs are entitled to judgment for $7,329.63, together with interest at six per cent from August 9, 1933, for the following reasons:
It is conceded in the pleadings that the policy was intended to cover, and should be reformed to cover, the appellants. Consequently, the policy is to be read as though it were so written.
The Insurance Company relies upon a clause of the policy set out in Judge GAR-RECHT’S opinion providing that the policy shall be void “if the interest of the insured be other than unconditional and sole ownership”.
In my opinion the first paragraph of the rider to the policy which is set out in Judge GARRECHT’S opinion, supersedes the general provisions of the policy with relation to unconditional ownership. The rider shows on its face that it is to be used in reference to property on lands leased for the development of oil. To the extent that the property insured is affixed to the land the lessee would not be the unconditional owner. It is not alleged that *577any of the property destroyed by fire, liability for which is contested by the Insurance Company, was affixed to the land, but the description of the destroyed property contained in the complaint would indicate that some of it, if not most of it, was affixed to the land. One item is a building 20 x 22 x 16; another, a pump house 12 x 28; there are 2 3,000-barrel tanks, and 2 1000-barrel tanks which are probably affixed to the land. There was an electric dehydrator with fittings and pipes, gate-valves, etc.; there were 18 250-barrel tanks and 2 500-barrel tanks.
The policy expressly included in its coverage in the rider all buildings, structures, tanks, equipment and contents therein, “all while upon the premises at the location specified * * * pertaining to the operation of the oil and gas well properties and situate on land owned and/or leased and/or occupied by the insured.”
The evidence shows that the oil companies named in the policy as reformed had acquired the oil leases and had assigned their leases to the Marine Oil Company. Neither the Marine Oil Company nor the oil companies mentioned in the policy as amended owned unconditional title to the land or the fixtures thereon; notwithstanding this fact the policy expressly includes such property by the terms of the rider. Consequently, it could not have been intended that the fact that the insured’s interest was that of a lessee rather than an unconditional owner should invalidate the policy. This reasoning applies only to the fixtures.
As to the personal property, if any, destroyed it might be said that the policy required unconditional ownership notwithstanding the fact that the rider would take precedence over the unconditional ownership clause which is a part of the standard form of policy where the two clauses are in conflict, but the fact that no distinction was made in the policy between fixtures, as to which it is obvious the insured did not have unconditional ownership, and the other items wherein they might have such ownership, under such circumstances, bearing in mind that ambiguities are to be construed in favor of the insured, I am of the opinion that the condition as to ownership was waived in its entirety in so far as the property described in the policy was concerned.
I cannot agree that the second paragraph of t'he rider relating to property for which the insured is legally liable is applicable to the situation disclosed by the evidence and set out in Judge GAR-RECHT’S opinion.