Court Opinion

ID: 9809963
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 21:35:33.231969+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:39:16.057468
License: Public Domain

Clark, C. J.,
dissenting: Tbe defendant company executed an indemnity to tbe Linville Bobbin Company for any “loss” that it might incur by reason of injury or death of any of its employees. To pay for this indemnity policy, said Bobbin Company- took out of tbe fund which would have been liable to the payment of injuries sustained by its employees a sum which in course of time would more than equal such losses, else indemnity companies could not prosper.
Upon tbe death of tbe employee, who, in this instance, was killed in the course of employment, tbe Casualty Company became liable for tbe amount thereof. It cannot matter that such amount was not ascertained before this action was brought. Indeed, it is brought to ascertain that amount. If tbe Bobbin Company had eollepted that amount from tbe defendant tbe fund in its bands ought to be applied to such loss. It can make no difference that tbe Bobbin Company has become insolvent. This can not excuse tbe defendant, or release its liability in any way, nor deprive the personal representative of tbe deceased of a right to receive said sum.
*448Tbe contract to indemnify against “loss” should not receive this restricted construction. If it does, then the Indemnity Company has received money for which it is to pay nothing in return, though the employee has been wrongfully killed. The word “loss” in the due and proper construction of the contract means “liability- accruing by reason of the death or injury of any employee” — the liability not to exceed the sum specified.
It is a principle of law well recognized that when the principal debtor obtains security the creditor is subrogated to the right to subject such security to the payment of the liability. Here the personal representative of the deceased is entitled to be subrogated to the indemnity which was purchased by the Bobbin Company for' payment of the losses, i. e., the liability occurring by reason of the wrongful death or injury of any employee. This is independent of any right to apply the principle laid down in Gorrell v. Water Co., 124 N. C., 328, that when a contract is made between two parties the beneficiary is entitled to maintain an action therefor. Morton v. Water Co., 168 N. C., 582.
The action is properly by the receiver of the Bobbin Company, who would hold the fund, if recovered, in trust for the administrator of the deceased employee. If this be not so, then the defendant, as to the insolvent employer, is like Mark Antony, “Though it had no hand in his death, will profit by his dying.”