Brehm Lumber Co. v. Svea Insurance Co.

Citations

• 36 Wash. 520
• 68 L.R.A. 109
• 79 P. 34
• 1905 Wash. LEXIS 623

Syllabus

<p>Insurance — Conditions of Policy — Construction—Warranty Against Idleness of Plant for More Than Thirty Days — Evidence — Sufficiency. A clause in a policy of fire insurance upon a shingle mill providing that the policy should be void if the property should be idle or shut down for more than thirty days, refers to the stopping of the machinery by which the manufacture is effected; and the policy is vitiated where no shingles are cut and no steam is generated in the boilers for more than thirty days, notwithstanding the fact that shingles are placed in the dry kiln to air dry and are shipped therefrom, or that bolts were brought down ready for manufacture during said period, and such acts do not constitute partial operation of the property.</p> <p>Same — Increase of Risk. Where, in answer to questions, an application for insurance upon a steam shingle mill enumerated, as the facilities for extinguishing fires, certain apparatus that could be operated only when fires were under the boilers and steam was up, a clause, conspicuously attached to the policy, providing that the insurance should be void if the property was idle or shut down for more «than thirty days, is a reasonable provision to be enforced as any other contract, and, with evidence of idleness, supports a defense that the risk had been increased without the company’s consent.</p> <p>Insurance — Separate Valuation Clauses — Divisibility of Contract — Breach of Conditions Affecting Entire Risk. Where, in violation of a clause that the property shall not be .shut down, the omission to keep steam in the boilers of a steam shingle mill rendered’ useless the fire apparatus mentioned in the application, and affected the whole risk, the contract can not be considered divisible by reason of the fact of separate valuation clauses and separate items of insurance upon the mill, the engines and boilers, machinery, dry kiln and pipes, and stock on hand, all in proximity thereto and connected therewith, and if the pol