Court Opinion

ID: 9680667
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 07:36:19.405207+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:29.914970
License: Public Domain

ARCHER, Chief Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent.
The court did not err in sustaining the motion for summary judgment. I do not find any evidence of a contract of insurance in effect between the parties at the time of plaintiff’s injury, and that as a matter of law the trial court correctly held that there was no genuine issue of material fact existing between the parties.
The policy issued by the insurance company was on terms different from those offered by plaintiff in his application, and was a counter offer.
*668The policy was delivered to appellant on the afternoon or early evening of June 25, 1964, and bore an effective date of 12:00 o’clock noon, June 25, 1964, which effective date was one hour subsequent to the claimed injury.
In order for a contract to come into being between two parties, the acceptance of an offer must be identical with the offer, without variance.
6 R.C.L., p. 608, Section 31.
Republic Nat. Life Ins. Co. v. Hall, 149 Tex. 297, 232 S.W.2d 697 (1950).
In Southland Life Ins. Co. v. Vela, 147 Tex. 478, 217 S.W.2d 660 (1949), it was held:
“No public policy is violated by a contract between an insurance company and an insured whereby premiums are to be paid from the effective date of the policy rather than the date of its delivery, even though the effect thereof is to charge a premium for a period when the insured has no protection. * * * ”
United Founders Life Ins. Co. v. Carey, 363 S.W.2d 236 (Tex.Sup.1962).
This Court, opinion by Associate Justice Phillips, dissenting opinion by Associate Justice Hughes, in Legal Security Life Ins. Co. v. Ward, 373 S.W.2d 693 (Tex.Civ.App. Austin 1963, no writ), stated this proposition as follows:
“When the defendant company attached the riders excluding the various illnesses mentioned above to the policies in question it was not issuing plaintiff the policies applied for. A qualified or conditional acceptance is a counter offer. Springfield Fire & Marine Ins. Co. v. Hubbs-Johnson Motor Co., Tex.Com.App., 42 S.W.2d 248.”