Court Opinion

ID: 9586425
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:10:38.297982+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:25.084894
License: Public Domain

Russell, Judge,
concurring specially. Without further going into evidence set out in the majority opinion (Division 3), the evidence showed (a) that the deceased customarily endorsed his name on pay checks, and had done so within a month of the date of this application; (b) the doctor in question never testified that he had told the deceased what his ailment was and did not remember whether he had or not, and (c) evidence as to the previous “spells” was very unsatisfactory.
I disagree with the conclusion reached in Division 3 because in my opinion actual fraud always constitutes bad faith. The actual fraud of the agent, if imputable to the principal, is fraud on the part of the principal although another agent of the corporation in acting to deny liability may not have had knowledge of the fraud of an agent binding upon the company. As to the acts of a soliciting agent, “Where . . . such agent undertook to prepare for another an application for insurance and wilfully inserted therein a false answer to a material question, he will be regarded in so doing as the agent of the company and not of the applicant, and the agent’s knowledge of the falsity of the answer will be imputed to the company.” Clubb v. American Acc. Co., 97 Ga. 502 (25 SE 333); Stillson v. Prudential Ins. Co. of America, 202 Ga. 79, 81 (42 SE2d 121); National Life &c. *248Ins. Co. v. Goolsby, 91 Ga. App. 361, 364 (85 SE2d 611); Reserve Life Ins. Co. v. Ayers, 217 Ga. 206, 214 (121 SE2d 649).
Likewise, the fraud of the claims adjuster in procuring the plaintiff to sign a release of all claims for the return premiums in the belief that she was signing a receipt for the check was actual fraud of the agent imputable to the principal. The plaintiff could not get a verdict in this case without the jury finding actual fraud on the part of the defendant as to both of its defenses, and that both of these acts were imputable to the defendant. The defendant, having been guilty of fraud through the acts of its agents (through whom alone it could have acted) is estopped, under Stillson to assert these defenses. It must therefore necessarily have been acting in bad faith. Either defense, if proved, would necessarily result in a verdict for the defendant. Either defense, not proved, establishes actual fraud on the part of the defendant through its agent. Whether or not bad faith exists is usually a jury question. American Cas. Co. v. Callaway, 75 Ga. App. 799 (2) (44 SE2d 400). The jury having found there was bad faith as a condition precedent to a recovery by the plaintiff, it seems to me that it logically follows there is also a right of recovery of attorney’s fees under Code Ann. 8 56-1206.