Court Opinion

ID: 9417057
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 20:01:40.788647+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:21:35.394069
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Strong.
While I concur in a reversal of these judgments and the decree, I dissent entirely from the opinion filed by a majority of the court. I cannot construe the policies as the majority have construed them. A policy of life insurance is a peculiar contract. Its obligations are unilateral. It contains no undertaking of the assured to pay premiums : it merely gives him an option to pay or not, and thus to continue the obligation of *37the insurers, or terminate it at his pleasure. It follows that the consideration for the assumption of the insurers can in no sense be considered an annuity consisting of the annual premiums. In my opinion, the true meaning of - the contract is, that the applicant for insurance, by paying the first premium, obtains an. insurance for one year, together with a right to have the insurance continued from year to year during his life, upon payment' of the same annual premium, if paid in advance. Whether he will avail himself of the refusal of the insurers, or not, is optional with him. The payment ad diem of the second or any subsequent premium is, therefore, a condition precedent to continued liability of the insurers. The assured may perform it or not, at his option. In such a ease, the doctrine that accident, inevitable necessity, or the act of God, may excuse performance, has no existence. It’is-for this reason that I think the policies upon which these suits were brought were not in force after the assured ceased to pay premiums. And so, though for other reasons, the majority, of the court holds; but they hold, at the same time, that the assured in each case is entitled to recover the surrender, or what they call the equitable, value of the policy. This is incomprehensible to me. I think it has never before been decided that the surrender value of a policy can be recovered by an assured, unless there has been an agreement between the parties for -a surrender; and certainly it has not before been decided that a supervening state of war makes a contract between private parties, or raises an implication of one.