Court Opinion

ID: 9671642
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:41:01.220797+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:11.218581
License: Public Domain

ON MOTION FOR REHEARING
CHADICK, Chief Justice.
The appellee’s urgent insistence that the original opinion herein is off target prompts this notation of concurrence with the original opinion.
I shall undertake to explain why, in my view, the proceeds of the Doss insurance policy did not inure to the benefit of Rena Roberts. The appellee primarily relies upon Lee v. Honea, 349 S.W.2d 110 (Tex. Civ.App. Fort Worth 1961), writ ref’d, n. r.e. at 163 Tex. 129, 352 S.W.2d 717 (1961). This is emphasized by the statement in the appellee’s brief that such case is “the controlling and decisive precedent” in the appeal. Honea is distinguishable. In Ho-nea the co-tenant insured the house destroyed by fire, with loss payable to himself, for the house’s full value, not merely for the value of his one-half undivided interest therein. In this case, Mr. Doss told Mrs. Roberts that he was preparing to insure his individual interest in the house and thereafter he did procure insurance against loss by fire, payable to himself as his interest might appear. Nothing in the record indicates that the amount of insurance procured by Mr. Doss was in excess of the value of his interest in the destroyed house. Unlike Honea, there is no proof that Mr. Doss insured the house for its full value or that he intended to or did insure his co-tenant’s interest in the house. The insurer paid Mr. Doss the face amount of his policy in compliance with the policy obligation to pay losses within policy limits sustained by Mr. Doss’ interest in the property. Inferentially, the insurer’s payment of the loss tends to prove that the value of Mr. Doss’ interest in the house was equal to or exceeded the amount paid under the policy’s terms. But if such inference can not validly be drawn from the proof, still, in the absence of evidence *843that the interest of the co-tenant, Mrs. Roberts, was actually insured, she, as co-tenant, had no claim to the insurance proceeds under basic principles of contract law. See cases cited in original opinion.