Court Opinion

ID: 9832500
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 21:57:35.42138+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:47.443669
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
Able counsel for appellant has filed a motion for rehearing, hi which there appear to be certain misconceptions of the effect of our opinion in this case.
[7] It is urged that we have practically nullified article 4968, Revised Statutes, which provides that an agent soliciting insurance shall be deemed the agent of the company, but shall not have the power to waive, change, or alter any of the terms or conditions of the application or policy. We have not intended to hold, nor do we hold, that Alexander had such power, but merely that his acts, tending to show a waiver, would he binding on the company only when authorized or acquiesced in by some executive officer named in the policy, with knowledge of his acts. In such case it is our opinion that the statute is not violated. It is competent for an insurance company to stipulate in the policy, as here, that a waiver may be accomplished only through the acts or conduct of executive officers, but that stipulation itself may be waived by the company, and a waiver may result by acts of its agents authorized or acquiesced in by such officers. The acts of the agents then become the acts of the company, notwithstanding the statute, which was enacted for the benefit of such companies.
It is also contended that our opinion is in conflict with Insurance Co. v. Walker, 94 Tex. 473, 61 S. W. 711, and Insurance Co. v. Stubbs, 216 S. W. 896. We- do not think our judgment or opinion is opposed to the holding in either of these cases. In the Walker Case there was no evidence showing or tending to show that the company knew of the misrepresentation in the application, which seems to have been known only to the local agent and the insured. In the Stubbs Case the representations of the agent were not shown to have been brought home to the officers of the company.
Our holding in the instant case does not, as seems to be supposed, go to the extent of binding the company by any course of dealing between the insured and its agent, or by any acts or conduct of the latter not known to or acquiesced in by some executive officer named in the policy.
[8] Nor do we think we have misapplied che doctrine of the Ellis Case, as announced by the Supreme Court, in reference to a course of dealing tending to show waiver. The two original $10,000 policies, constituting Mr. Dunken’s insurance with appellee, were applied for and issued at the same time, and the premiums were sometimes remitted and extensions arranged for at the same time. It cannot be said that they were so separate and unrelated as that the acts of the company, or those of its agent by its authority, in past dealings with regard to waiver of forfeiture for nonpayment of premiums when due, would be inadmissible upon the question of intent to later waive a forfeiture of either policy, or of another policy to which one of them was intended to be converted.
After much difficulty, we have concluded to overrule the motion for rehearing; and think it proper to add that we reversed this case for trial, not only upon the issue of waiver, but also as to the alleged delivery of the second policy as a complete and binding contract in effect at Mr. Dunken’s death. This holding does not appear to have been challenged in the motion for rehearing.
Motion is overruled.
Motion overruled.