Court Opinion

ID: 9828456
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 18:23:35.860801+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:29:24.965703
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
We attached no importance to the finding fhat the policy contained no indorsement of any agreement by the insurance company with E. L. Day, the owner of the property, waiving the provision contained in the policy that the same would be void if, with the knowledge of Day, foreclosure proceedings should be instituted upon the mortgage outstanding against the property. The stipulation in favor of Walker, the mortgagee, that he should have ten days’ notice of any intention by the company to cancel the policy was expressly recognized. We have carefully examined appellant’s answer and are of the opinion that, although general in its terms, it was sufficient, in the absence of any special exception, to present the issue that, prior to the fire, Walker agreed with the company that the policy should be canceled. In its motion for rehearing appellant earnestly insists that it is apparent from the pleading of Walker that the mutual mistake alleged by him as having induced him to agree to a cancellation of the policy prior to the fire was a mistake of law and not a mistake of fact, and hence did not present any valid defense to an enforcement of such agreement. Many authorities are cited to support this contention, which we think are inapplicable. The mistake so alleged did not consist of an erroneous legal construction of the terms of the policy, but consisted of an erroneous supposition that the policy contained certain stipulations, and hence was a mutual mistake of fact, which, like any other mutual mistake of material facts, would present a valid defense to the enforcement of the agreement.
In our original opinion the cause was remanded for a new trial generally, and the expression used in a preceding portion of the opinion that it should be remanded for a trial of the issue of mutual mistake was not intended as any limitation of that conclusion.
With these observations the motions of appellant and appellee for rehearing are overruled.