Dettra v. Kestner

Citations

• 147 Pa. 566
• 23 A. 889
• 1892 Pa. LEXIS 893

Syllabus

<p>Mutual insurance companies — Fraud—Assessments—Contract.</p> <p>A member of a mutual insurance company, who has been induced to become a member by the fraudulent representations of the officers of the company, cannot set up the fraud as a defence to an action by the receiver of the company for assessments, where other persons have subsequently joined the company as innocent third parties.</p> <p>In such a case, as the rights of innocent third parties have intervened, and it is essential to their protection that a contract, otherwise vitiated by fraud and therefore voidable, should be sustained, equity requires that it be upheld.</p>