Court Opinion

ID: 9651700
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 16:31:37.236185+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:29.444749
License: Public Domain

WOODROUGH, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
City of University City is the owner of a plot of ground in the City known as Block 4, University Heights Subdivision, with the improvements thereon, consisting of an octagonal shaped five-story building connected at its rear or north side through a fifty-foot long passageway with a rectangular building which is three, two and one story in height in its several parts. There is also a one-story police garage on the lot. The octagonal building is on the north side of Delmar Avenue and has two main entrances on Delmar Avenue and is occupied as a City Hall with some office space rented to tenants. The other buildings open onto the west side of Harvard Avenue (formerly Oberlin Avenue) and are occupied by the City Police Department and jail, a partitioned-off space rented to a public warehouse company, and a police garage. A fire occurred in a part of the rectangular building which was rented by the City to Orcutt Moving and Storage Company for warehouse purposes, and the City brought this suit to recover on account of the loss upon a fire insurance policy issued to it by the defendant Western Fire Insurance Company. The company admitted that it had issued the policy sued on and that it was in force at the time of the fire, but asserted that it insured the octagonal building, where there was no fire, and denied that it insured the rectangular building where the fire was. The words and figures of description used in the policy to identify the property on which the insurance is written are: “On the fireproof building, located North side of Delmar Blvd. between Trinity & Oberlin Ave., known as 6801 Delmar Blvd., University City, Mo.”
The City claims that the octagonal building and the rectangular building constituted one integral structure or building, and that the part of the rectangular building that was burned was included within the description and identifying street number in the policy. The sole issue litigated below was whether both or only one of the improvements was described and insured by the policy. The court instructed the jury to take into consideration the language of the policy and the facts and circumstances in evidence, and if it appeared that the policy was capable of being construed by a person of ordinary prudence as applying to and covering the property where the fire occurred, their verdict should be for the plaintiff, even though it appeared from the evidence that the defendant did not intend to insure the portion of the property_which was damaged by the fire. The jury’s verdict was for the insurance company and the City has appealed from the judgment of dismissal entered on the verdict.
There is evidence in the record that this whole property of the City was subject to a mortgage owned by the Mercantile Commerce Bank and Trust Company, requiring that there should at all times be kept deposited with the bank $75,000 of insurance payable to the bank in case of loss, and in compliance with that requirement, the City’s insurance policies were physically deposited in the hands of the bank and, including the policy in suit, they were payable in case of loss to the bank. The bank acquired the mortgage in 1932, and in January of that year there was $50,000 of tornado insurance on the improvements on the mortgaged property which was expiring. The bank notified the City in advance of the expiration and the City procured continuance of the protection by depositing with the bank three new policies, two for $15,000 and one for $20,000, to make up the $50,000 of insurance. In all of these policies the octagonal building was identified as the building on the north side of Delmar, numbered 6801 Delmar, the rectangular building was identified as the building “on the rear” of the building numbered 6801 Delmar, and the police garage was designated as the police garage. Another expiration date in the same year, 1932, was October 25, at which time $25,000 of fire insurance deposited with the bank would expire. On being notified by the bank, the City procured two new policies continuing fire insurance in the same amount, to be written and deposited with the bank by F. D. Hirschberg and Company, an old established insurance agency of St. Louis. Of these new policies, issued simultaneously, one was in the *300amount of $15,000 and described the property insured as the building “situated North side of Delmar Avenue between Oberlin and Trinity Avenues, Block 4 Subdivision ¥l University City”, and the other policy, in the amount of $10,000, described the property insured as the building “situated West side of Oberlin Avenue in the rear of City Hall Building.” Opposite the word “Occupancy” in the record of the first policy appeared “City Hall”, and in the other policy record the notation as to occupancy was “Orcutt Whse” (Warehouse).' Obviously the first description designated the octagonal building and the second designated the rectangular building to the rear where the fire occurred. The rate at which the octagonal building was insured was .866 per hundred dollars for three years, and the rate on the rectangular building was 2.783 per hundred dollars for the same period.
Up to the expiration date of these two policies on October 25, 1935, there was no possibility of uncertainty as to what improvements the respective, policies deposited with the bank were intended to cover. The descriptions in the policies were not in con-veyancers’ language but were sufficient to inform the insured clearly that the improvements were insured as distinct and separate buildings, one building in the rear of the other building, and that each described structure was treated as a building to which certain insurance was related. Copy of a letter from the Hirschberg Agency to the bank is in evidence, listing and transmitting to the bank three policies “written for the account of the City of University City which expired on October 25” (1932). The letter is on one sheet and discloses at a glance that the building on the “north sidé of Delmar” was insured as one building in the amount of $15,000 and the building “in rear” was insured in the sum of $10,000 as a different building. Being a letter of transmittal of fire insurance policies that had expired long before the trial of this case, neither the old policies nor the original letter transmitting them were available at the trial, but there is no reason to question the record kept in the usual course of business in the Hirschberg Agency. It appears that as the policies were physically deposited with the bank their verbiage was unknown to the City officers. They testified at the trial that they had never seen any of them. A lady in the employ of the City who may have had more information was very sick and unable to testify.
October 25, 1935, was the expiration date of the two fire policies which had been written by Hirschberg and Company, and transmitted to the bank in 1932, one on the octagonal building for $15,000 and one on the building “in rear” for $10,000 and the bank duly notified the City concerning the expirations and requested deposit of renewal policies. The letter of the bank"was not in evidence, but the City Board of Aldermen duly passed a resolution reciting that it was informed of the expiration of the two policies, and the Board directed that the “ten thousand dollar fire insurance policy” “be given to Frank L. Mackey”, and “the fifteen thousand dollar fire insurance policy to Walter Gantner,” and that “the above fire insurance policies * * * be allotted” as stated.
Frank L. Mackey and Walter Gantner were insurance solicitors or brokers, and the plain meaning of the Board’s order was that one of the brokers should procure continuation of the insurance represented by the expiring $15,000 policy on the octagonal building, and the other should procure continuation of the insurance represented by the expiring $10,000 policy on the building “in rear”. There was nothing in the order of the Board indicating that the Board wanted the brokers to increase the coverage of the insurance payable to the bank evidenced by the two policies that were expiring. The Board allotted or parcelled out the identical insurance it had to, and was, carrying under its mortgage contract, among the brokers who were seeking the business. When it “allotted” the $15,000 policy insuring one building to Mr. Gantner, it' evidenced no intention that he should buy anything .besides new insurance to continue the specified existing insurance. The bank to which the insurance was payable had not requested additional insurance upon the other building in which there was a public warehouse and which carried a much higher premium rate, and there is nothing in the record to indicate that any such increase of outlay for insurance payable to the bank was in contemplation by the Board. If such had been the intention, it is not credible that a policy would have been taken with the same old description long used to cover only the one building* and not the other.1
*301In pursuance of the order of the Board, Frank L. Mackey procured a new policy for •$10,000 which is not shown in evidence, and Walter Gantner procured two new policies, identical in form, for $7500 each, one of which is the policy in suit. The lady in the employ of the insurance agency who used the typewriter to make out the policy sued on testified that Mr. Gantner told her what they wanted insured and that she prepared the policy as per his instructions. Her testimony contradicted the assertion of Mr. Gantner that the “City Hall group of buildings” was the property upon which he was to procure the insurance. She says she wrote the description of the same single building in the new policy which was insured by the expiring policy “as per his instructions.”
The description of the property typewritten into the new policies was in substantially the same words of description that had been used in the expiring policy. That is, the old policy covered a “building, situated North side of Delmar Avenue, between Oberlin and Trinity Avenues, Block No. 4 Subdivision No. 1 University City, Missouri”, and the policy issued on his instructions covered a “building located North Side of Delmar Blvd. between Trinity and Oberlin Ave. known as 6801 Delmar Blvd. University City, Mo.” The premium rate for the three years’ insurance appeared on the face of the new policy in large type, .867, and was the same rate within one-tenth of one cent as the rate of the expiring policy.
Practically the only difference between the description used in the expiring $15,000 policy which was allotted by the Board of Aldermen to Mr. Gantner and the new policies which he procured to continue the insurance, is that in the expiring policy there was no reference to the street number of the building insured and in the new policy the word's “known as 6801 Delmar Blvd” were added to the description of the building insured. In this respect there was a reversion to the description of the octagonal building used in the tornado policies above referred to, wherein the octagonal building was given the Delmar street number 6801, and the building that was burned was described as being “in the rear”. The evidence was conflicting whether a number was ever in fact physically upon the octagonal building, but it was shown that the number assignable to that building under the City regulations would be 6801 Delmar. There was also testimony for the City that the other City buildings in the rear oí the octagonal building, which open onto Harvard Avenue, were sometimes referred to or known by the same number, and that mail was directed to occupants of the other buildings under that number. But no regulation was shown to justify giving a Delmar street number to the buildings that let out on Harvard Avenue.
The City introduced in evidence the check with which it paid for the policy in suit, which contained a notation that it was in payment of insurance on the “buildings” on its land. It proved that the octagonal building and the rectangular building, as well as the passageway between them, were all built at the same time — as an integral and not segmented construction. That heat, light and power were brought into the octagonal building from the rectangular building through the passageway, and that both structures had been built originally to house the plant of a magazine publishing concern. The uses to which each part of each structure had been put, and the details of occupancy at the time of the issuance of the policy and at the time of the fire, were also shown by the City, and it was argued that in the light of the evidence the description in the policy could be found to cover the rectangular building which was burned. The argument was then pressed that under Missouri law (as generally) the policy should be construed liberally in favor of the assured and that when so construed it could be read to cover both the octagonal building and the rectangular building, and that the City was entitled to a verdict as a matter of law.
The Company concedes that a contract of insurance is ordinarily to be construed against the insurer in the event of any ambiguity therein, because the language of the policy is of its choosing, but contends that where there is dispute as to the identity of a person whose life is insured, or the identity of property which is insured, the rule may not be carried to unreasonable conclusions. East & West Ins. Co. v. Fidel, 10 Cir., 49 F.2d 35; Freed Realty Co. v. National Fire Ins. Co., 161 La. 102, 108 So. 228; Jefferson County Bank v. Insurance Company, 251 Ky. 502, 65 S.W.2d 474, 475 ; Peony Park v. Security Ins. Co., Neb., 289 N.W. 848. The octagonal five-story *302building occupied mainly by the City as its City Hall is located on the north side of Delmar Boulevard and is known as 6801 Delmar Boulevard, and is therefore aptly described in the policy sued on. The buildings to the rear of it on the same block 4 which open onto the west side of Harvard Avenue could not be brought within the coverage of the policy except by a determination that the structures were altogether “a building” within the meaning of the word “building” in the policy. The word building is synonymous with structure or edifice. Undoubtedly circumstances may be presented where several structures have been so connected, combined or integrated that the aggregate may in common parlance come within the designation of a “building”. But no rigid rule of law can be found to settle for all cases whether or not such integration of structures into one building has occurred.2 In many cases the true intention of the parties who used the word “building” in their contract will remain a question of fact. I think the trial court committed no error prejudicial to this appellant when in this case it submitted the issue to the jury under the instruction that they should find for the City if it appeared on consideration of the language of the policy and the facts and circumstances in evidence that the policy was capable of being construed by a person of ordinary prudence as covering the property where the fire occurred. Queens Ins. Co. v. Meyer Milling Co., 8 Cir., 43 F.2d 885.
On the whole case, I think it is clear that the City did not pay the insurance company to insure the rectangular building where the fire occurred and had no intention of buying any insurance for the bank except continuation of the insurance then expiring; the Company had no thought or intention to insure the building opening on Harvard containing a warehouse, and the description in the policy, read in the light of the use long made of the same words in the City insurance contracts to designate the octagonal building and not the rectangular building— all the circumstances taken together leave no doubt in my mind that the verdict of the jury was just and right. The rules about latent and patent ambiguities and the court’s power to resolve an ambiguity as a matter of law, are all to further justice. I think the judgment here could and should be affirmed without doing any violence to them.

 That prior insurance should be considered on the question of intention is assumed as elemental in Williams Mfg. Co. v. Insurance Company, 93 Vt. 161, 106 A. 657, cited in 26 C.J. 88, Sec. 84. I think it is.

 See Alterman v. Home Ins. Co., 195 App.Div. 151, 186 N.Y.S. 462.