Court Opinion

ID: 9552792
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 19:17:00.598702+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:28:59.118055
License: Public Domain

On Petition for Rehearing
Before Lusk, Chief Justice, and Brand, Belt*, Rossman and Latourette, Justices.
Petition denied.
BRAND, J.
In our former opinion we held that the provisions of O. C. L. A., § 101-1609 did not control the method by which the policy on the plaintiff’s automobile might *647be canceled by the company. We further held that the provisions of the policy itself controlled the method by which it might be canceled. By a petition for rehearing the plaintiff contends that we erred in so holding and again urges that compliance with the provisions of O. C. L. A., § 101-1609 constituted the only method by which the automobile insurance policy in question could be canceled.
In the year 1907 the legislature passed an act “to provide for a uniform contract or policy of fire insurance * * Laws 1907, Ch. 137. That act specifically set forth the provisions which shall be incorporated into the policy, and among other such provisions, there was'one which specified the method by which any “fire insurance pplicy” or renewal of any “fire policy!’ might' be canceled. The act was limited to policies insuring against loss by fire and contained no reference to-policies insuring against damage to automobiles unless that damage was the result of fire. The act was amended by the Laws of 1911, Chapter 175. The 1911 act. made only a minor change in the required standard form for cancelation. The 1911 statute was not expressly repealed until the enactment of Chapter -237, Laws of 1945. In 1917 a comprehensive statute, known as the “Insurance Law” was enacted, which provided that:
“A company may be licensed to make any or all insurance and reinsurance comprised in any one of the following numbered subdivisions:
“First. Fire and Marine Insurance, (a) On property and rents and use and occupancy, against loss or damage by fire, lightning, tempest, flood, earthquake, hail, frost, snow, explosion (other than explosion of steam boilers or breakage of flywheels), leakage of sprinklers or other apparatus erected for extinguishing fires, and on such apparatus *648against accidental injury; on automobiles against loss or damage from collision or theft, and against liability of the owner or user for injury to property caused by his automobile.” Laws 1917, Ch. 203, Sec. 5, (2), p. 326; O. C. L. A., § 101-117. ■
The same chapter of the 1917 Laws indicates that the legislature contemplated that “automobile insurance” would be issued by fire insurance companies, for it is provided “For this purpose a fire insurance company need not use the standard fire policy.” Laws 1917, Ch. 203, Sec. 5-e (3). The same provision appears in Laws 1927, Ch. 93, Sec. 1, which was amendatory of the 1917 act and which now appears as O. C. L. A., § 101-122. In the same statute, and under the heading “GENERAL PROVISIONS RELATING TO ALL FIRE INSURANCE COMPANIES”, the following provision was enacted:
“On and after January 1,1918, no fire insurance company shall issue any fire insurance policy covering on property or interest therein in the State other than on form known as the ‘Standard’ as now or may be hereafter constituted.” Laws 1917, Ch. 203, Sec. 22-h, (1).
The provision concerning the “form known as the ‘Standard’ ” must apply to the 1911 statute, supra, which provided for standard forms of fire insurance policies. Section 22-i of the 1917 act contains the provision which became O. C. L. A., § 101-1609 on which the plaintiff relies. It will be observed that O. C. L. A., § 101-1609 (Laws 1917, Sec. 22-i) provides the manner by which “any fire insurance policy” may be canceled. That act went into effect on 21 May 1917, but 22-h of Chapter 203 of the 1917 Laws, quoted supra, provides that all fire insurance companies issuing fire insurance policies after 1 January 1918 must employ the standard *649form which was then provided by the 1911 act. We conclude that any fire insurance policy which was issued after 1 January 1918 was controlled by the cancelation provisions in the standard form, and not by the provisions of O. C. L. A., § 101-1609 which were in effect only as to cancelations which occurred prior to 1 January 1918. Since the plaintiff’s policy was issued after 1 January 1918, it follows that O. C. L. A., § 101-1609 never applied to it, whatever the meaning of the words “fire insurance policy” may be.
Chapter 237 of the Laws of 1945 amends the standard form statute and provides that no fire insurance company shall issue “any fire insurance policy” except in conformance with the mandatory provisions of the act. The requisite steps for cancelation under the 1945 act are materially different from, and inconsistent with, the provisions of O. C. L. A., § 101-1609. We know that the 1945 act does not apply to automobile insurance because it is expressly provided by O. C. L. A., § 101-122, Par. 3, that insurance known as automobile insurance need not use the standard fire policy. O. C. L. A., § 101-1609 provides that “Any fire insurance policy may be canceled”. The 1945 statute, providing the standard form, also employs the term “Any fire insurance policy”. We think that the words were used in the same sense in both statutes and that in neither case were they intended to include automobile insurance policies insuring against collision. We therefore find no statute which defines the method by which an automobile policy insuring against collision, or any other loss, other than that caused by fire, shall be canceled by the insurer, and we conclude that the method specified in the policy controls. Even in the absence of the express provision that automobile insurance *650covering fire, collision and liability for damage shall be known as automobile insurance, we find it difficult to believe that the usual automobile insurance policy such as is involved in the pending case-would ever be referred to. as a fire insurance policy. The licensing statute, O. C. L. A., § 101-117, groups for the purposes of licensing, not only fire insurance and automobile insurance, but also insurance against, flood, snow and the like. We think no one would designate a policy insuring against flood as a fire insurance, policy. The foregoing considerations sustain the views which we expressed in our first opinion.
Counsel cites the following eases in support of the proposition that section 101-1609, O. C. L. A., is the exclusive method by which the policy in question could be canceled: Walker v. Fireman’s Fund Insurance Company, 114 Or. 545, 234 P. 542; Williams v. Pacific States Fire Insurance Company, 120 Or. 1, 251 P. 258; Commercial Securities, Inc. v. Hall, 140 Or. 644, 15 P. 2d 483. Support from the cited cases is claimed by reason of language in each of them which asserts, or implies, that a policy of insurance on automobiles was a fire insurance policy. In the Walker case the court referred to a standard policy “used in other kinds of fire insurance”. In the Williams case the court saicl, “This is an action on a fire insurance policy”, and in the Commercial Securities case the court referred to the policy as an “automobile insurance policy”, but it also said that the policy “is not a standard fire policy”. In each of the three cases, automobiles werfe specifically insured against fire, and were consumed by fire. The fact that the court referred expressly, or by implication, to the policies as fire insurance policies, is without any significance in the case at bar. The petition for rehearing is denied.