Court Opinion

ID: 9444584
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:05:31.895501+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:55.420286
License: Public Domain

MILLER, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I am of the opinion that under the rule of Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64, 58 S.Ct. 817, 82 L.Ed. 1188, this case is controlled by the ruling of the Ohio Supreme Court in John Hancock Mutual Life Ins. Co. v. Luzio, 123 Ohio St. 616, 176 N.E. 446, 447. The applicable law established by that case, using the syllabus rule in effect in Ohio, is contained in Paragraph 4 of the syllabus reading as follows:
“One who is employed as soliciting agent, whose sole authority is to solicit insurance and to report to his principal the information which the applicant has given him, cannot, without proof of authority so to do, waive a condition in the policy providing that it shall not take effect unless the insured be alive and in sound health at the date of the policy.”
The provision in the policy in the present case, that the applicant undergo a satisfactory medical examination before the policy became effective, is of the same character as the provision in the policy in the Luzio case, and stronger in favor of the insurance company. In my opinion, it is necessarily covered by the rule of the Luzio case.
Peponis v. John Hancock Mutual Life Ins. Co., Ohio App., 47 N.E.2d 251, relied upon by the majority opinion, is from an inferior court and, if in conflict, is not controlling. I am not in accord with the construction given to that ruling by my colleagues. In the absence of a recorded opinion by either the trial court or the Court of Appeals in that case, and with no transcript of the evidence, or a copy of the instructions to the jury available, it is difficult to determine the exact issue therein presented and decided. I think the ruling was probably controlled by the fact that the failure to turn in a completed application to the office of the insurance company was the fault of the soliciting agent who carried the application away with him when he went on his vacation, from which he did not return until after the death of the applicant. Compare Bellak v. United Home Life Ins. Co., 6 Cir., 211 F.2d 280. That presents a different question from the one herein involved.
I would affirm the judgment of the District Court.