Capital City Mutual Fire Insurance ex rel. Kramer v. Boggs

Citations

• 172 Pa. 91
• 33 A. 349
• 1895 Pa. LEXIS 736

Syllabus

<p>Insurance — Mutual companies — Receivers—Assessments.</p> <p>An order of court authorizing a receiver of a mutual insurance company to levy an assessment must be strictly followed, and the receiver cannot go beyond its terms.</p> <p>An order of court authorizing the receiver to levy an assessment “ equal in amount to all other assessments heretofore levied,” does not authorize the receiver to include in the assessment penalties for nonpayment of prior assessments.</p> <p>Receivers — Assessments—Defenses.</p> <p>Where a court of competent jurisdiction has appointed a receiver of a mutual insurance company and authorized him to levy an assessment, and he has sued a member of the association for such assessment, such member cannot set up as a defense objections to the incorporation and entry into business of the company, its failure to comply with the requirements of the insurance department, and the purposes and necessity of the assessment authorized by the court.</p> <p>While in such a case the order of the court is conclusive upon the validity and the amount of the assessment, it does not touch the liability of the defendant to pay, nor conclude him as to defenses upon individual grounds, and therefore an affidavit of defense is good which avers that defendant was never a member óf the company because his application for and acceptance of the policy were induced by fraud on the part of the company’s agent; that no equities in other parties have intervened which require him to be held; and that the losses for the payment of which assessments were levied occurred before defendant’s policy was taken out.</p>