Court Opinion

ID: 9623093
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 06:27:37.696313+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:23.429342
License: Public Domain

Eberhardt, Judge,
concurring specially. The insured here did not make a written application to the company for the insurance contract, just as was the case in Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Hale, 177 Ga. 632 (170 SE 875). Consequently, we have nothing to indicate that Lucas was put on notice of any limitation of authority on the part of the company’s soliciting agents — ■ which usually appears in the application — and, as Judge Jenkins said in National Life &c. Ins. Co. v. Cantrell, 49 Ga. App. 368 (175 SE 543), we “must yield to the authority of the Hale case.”
Running through the decisions in many cases, particularly since New York Life Ins. Co. v. Patten, 151 Ga. 185, 187 (106 SE 183), has been an assertion that there is a difference in the treatment to be afforded a situation in which the agent having knowledge which may work a waiver or an estoppel against the company is a mere soliciting agent and in that where the agent has authority to issue the policy, as do fire insurance agents. There are cases in which it was held, in the former situation, that the insured should be held to be on notice of the limitation, if it is in the policy, by his acceptance of the policy, which is the time when the contract becomes effective, and the ■company is not to be estopped from defending on the basis of ■conditions of coverage set out in the contract, while in the latter the company is to be estopped because its agent has power to make and issue the contract. See, for example, Reliance Life Ins. Co. v. Hightower, 148 Ga. 843 (a) (98 SE 469); American Nat. Ins. Co. v. Floyd, 34 Ga. App. 541 (130 SE 531); American Nat Ins. Co. v. Potts, 35 Ga. App 32 (132 SE 142); Harris v. Bankers Health &c. Ins. Co., 40 Ga. App. 678 (150 *461SE 856); Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Alexander, 43 Ga. App. 385 (159 SE 124), and particularly Aronoff v. United States Fire Ins. Co., 178 Ga. 97, 104 (172 SE 59), in which the distinction is expressly recognized. And note, too, that Aronojf followed Hale by some four months in point of time when the Hale case was fresh in the minds of the Justices. Neither case is a full bench decision, both having dissents. The Hale case was followed in Reserve Life Ins. Co. v. Bearden, 213 Ga. 904 (102 SE2d 494), without any mention of the distinction, but again there were two dissents. Cf. Puckett v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., 32 Ga. App. 263 (122 SE 791); Penn Mutual Life Ins. Co. v. Blount, 33 Ga. App. 642 (127 SE 892).
In this status of the cases it appears to me that we are bound to follow the Hale case and that under it the only distinction that really matters is whether the applicant had notice of the agent’s limitation of authority. If he signs an application carrying the limitation or non-waiver provision, he has the requisite notice, is bound by it, and absent fraud on the part of the agent against the applicant or against the applicant and the company (Clubb v. American Accident Ins. Co., 97 Ga. 502, (25 SE 333)), the company cannot be estopped from invoking conditions in the policy as defenses to an action. McLemore v. Life Ins. Co. of Ga., 117 Ga. App. 155 (159 SE2d 480). But if, as here, there is nothing to disclose that the applicant had any notice of the limitation, which is usually the case when no written application is taken from him or when the application does not carry a non-waiver provision, the company may be estopped to invoke the policy conditions even though the limitation is carried on the face of the policy. Reserve Life Ins. Co. v. Bearden, 96 Ga. App. 549 (101 SE2d 120); George Washington Life Ins. Co. v. Smith, 90 Ga. App. 459 (83 SE2d 302). The estoppel applies, of course, only as to knowledge acquired by the agent prior to the issuance of the policy; the company is not to be estopped by reason of knowledge acquired or as to anything done thereafter or by promises made as to matters to occur thereafter. See, for example, Simonton, Jones & Hatcher v. Liverpool &c. Ins. Co., 51 Ga. 76; Lippman v. Aetna Ins. Co., 108 Ga. 391 (33 SE 897, 75 ASR 62); Fields v. Continental Ins. *462Co., 170 Ga. 28 (2b) (152 SE 60); Aronoff v.U. S. Fire Ins. Co. 178 Ga. 97, 104, supra; Sparks v. National Union Fire Ins. Co., 23 Ga. App. 38 (97 SE 462); Askew v. Maryland Ins. Co., 66 Ga. App. 564 (18 SE2d 564).
We should, if possible, avoid a rule which would allow a mere soliciting agent to make a contract of insurance by oral negotiations or representations (Fowler v. Preferred Accident Ins. Co., 100 Ga. 330 (28 SE 398)) thereby .to usurp the function of the underwriting department (Sasser v. Coastal States Life Ins. Co., 113 Ga. App. 17, 22 (147 SE2d 5)), and thus to “rob the written contract of all the safeguards the law has placed around it, and in effect rewrite every insurance policy to fit the oral agreements and knowledge of the agents.” Askew v. Maryland Ins. Co., 66 Ga. App. 564, 566, supra.
As Chief Judge, now Justice, Felton observed recently in U. S. Fidel. &c. Co. v. Vandusen, 120 Ga. App. 55 (169 SE2d 751), “There is a great distinction between the authority of a life insurance agent and a fire insurance agent which is too often overlooked.” The same distinction obtains as to any kind of insurance when the agent does not have the authority to issue the policy, but must obtain an application for, or submit on behalf of the applicant an offer which the company is free to accept or reject. Boswell v. Gulf Life Ins. Co., 197 Ga. 269, 272 (29 SE2d 71); Ft. Valley Coca-Cola Bottling Co. v. Lumbermen’s Mut. Cas. Co., 69 Ga. App. 120 (1) (24 SE2d 846)..
If there is a distinction, as we believe there is and as both this court and the Supreme Court have asserted, it is difficult to understand why the “fire insurance rule” was applied in Hale to a mere soliciting agent who had nothing to do with the issuance of the policy. Why should it be applied here? Neither the salesman nor the dealer had anything to do with the issuance of the policy, or any authority to do so. Indeed, neither of them ever saw it; it was issued and mailed- to plaintiff by Associates Discount which held the master policy and was the finance company to whom the purchase-money contract on the car was assigned. Why should the absence of a non-waiver in plaintiff’s offer to purchase this type of insurance as was included in the purchase money contract work a waiver? *463If the offer had included the information about plaintiff’s state of health the situation would be different; but it was not.
The law is not really clear on the subject. Perhaps it will be clarified, but until we have more light it seems to me that we must follow the ruling in Hale.