Court Opinion

ID: 9559042
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:21:11.374388+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:09:43.912927
License: Public Domain

HENRIOD, Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent, respectfully suggesting that there are a number of reasons which, though one or more in isolation might not do so, in the aggregate constitute a defense to this cause. They are as follows:
*2211. The assured was apprised by her monthly bank statement that the premiums were unpaid, and it was negligence to have looked at it and not to have seen this omission, or not to have looked at it at all;
2. The assured was notified of nonpayment by the insurance company when the latter addressed a letter to the former at Laredo, Texas, her residence at the time of issuance of the policy, she having a duty thereafter to notify the insurance company of any change of residence, failing which, constituted negligence;
3. The sight draft authorization represented and asserted that payment by the bank was but a courtesy, the assured specifically indemnifying against breach of such courtesy by telling the hank that “you assume or incur no liability whatsoever in the premises, and I further agree to hold you harmless of and from any and all claims arising hereunder”;
4. There appears to be no consideration for the courtesy, it being but an accommodation, and such courtesy was neither solicited nor officiously undertaken;
5. The authorization was prepared by the insurance company, the assured’s principal, and therefore must be considered as having been prepared by the assured, who presented it to the bank already prepared, requiring that any strict construction of the instrument be charged to her, not the bank, as the main opinion asserts, the bank having had nothing to do with the preparation of the unsolicited document;
6. The interpretation of the main opinion to the effect that the authorization protected only from “liability arising from compiance” is quite unrealistic since there could be no liability if there were full compliance with its terms; furthermore, the authorization, viewed in full context, does not lend itself reasonably to the construction placed upon it by the majority opinion;.
7. The whole scheme here allows for an insurance company to force upon a probably unwilling bank, a service unsought and unwanted, forces the latter to an administrative, bookkeeping and mailing expense never contemplated, solicited or desired, relieves the insurance company of that expense, and now, by virtue of this decision, makes the bank an absolute insurer for the payment of premiums at the expense of litigation, — all arising out of a veiled but nonetheless practical threat that nonperformance of the service will result in loss of business, — all of which is true, and all of which should be protected against by the clear and unambiguous release of any and all claims incorporated in the sight draft authorization.
It is no answer to say the bank may refuse to perform such service which its depositor requests and insists on. Any realistic business man would consider it *222quite foolhardy to turn away patronage by refusing the service, and any thinking person knows that to do so would result in loss of at least a percentage of such patronage.
The judgment of the trial court should be reversed.