Court Opinion

ID: 9866298
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-26 03:28:42.62078+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:19:47.972924
License: Public Domain

On Motion for "Rehearing.
Appellant insists that reversible error was committed by the court in refusing declaration of law No. 7 asked by it. This declaration of law is as follows:
“The court declares the law to be that if it finds and believes from the evidence that foreclosure proceedings were commenced in the circuit court of McDonald county, Missouri, to foreclose the equity of redemption of plaintiff Poplin in the insured property prior to the alleged fire loss and that the defendant had ho knowledge of the commencement of such foreclosure proceedings, then the right of plaintiffs to recover under said policy was forfeited and they cannot recover in this action.”
This declaration correctly states an abstract legal proposition, but knowledge that would bind defendant could not come to it directly but could only come to some agent of the company. The defendant is a corporation and can only act by and through its agents and can only acquire knowledge of facts through its agents. The only controverted fact in this case was whether defendant’s agent, J. S. Armstrong, knew of the commencement of the foreclosure proceedings and' whether he waived that ground of forfeiture and bound the company thereby. Had this trial been before a jury and this same declaration had been asked as an instruction to the jury we think it would have been erroneous because not informing the jury how knowledge could be acquired by the company. If it would have been erroneous as an instruction to a jury, it was not error for the court to refuse to give it as a declaration of law in a trial before the court. Instructions to juries or declarations of law in a trial *1078by the court should be based on the evidence, and the evidence as to knowledge on the part of defendant of the commencement of the foreclosure proceedings all tended to show knowledge on the part of J. S. Armstrong, the agent of defendant. Had this declaration of law stated that if the court should find that -I. S. Armstrong, the agent of defendant, had no knowledge of the commencement of foreclosure proceedings, then the policy was forfeited and plaintiffs could not recover, it would have been in correct form and based on the evidence in the case and should have been given but we do not think the court erred in refusing it as written.
The motion for rehearing will be overruled.