Hall v. Union Central Life Insurance

Citations

• 23 Wash. 610
• 51 L.R.A. 288
• 63 P. 505
• 1900 Wash. LEXIS 396

Syllabus

<p>PRINCIPAL AND AGENT — ADMISSIONS BY AGENT-ADMISSIBILITY.</p> <p>The admissions o-f an agent are admissible for tbe purpose of binding his principal, when the evidence shows his appointment as agent, or that the principal held him out to the public as an agent, and that his agency had never been revoked.</p> <p>SAME-INSURANCE.</p> <p>Admissions by an agent of a life insurance company concerning the payment of premiums on a policy by a decedent in his life time, although not made at the time the contract of insurance was entered into, are admissible, when it was within the scope of the agent’s duties to make such collections.</p> <p>SAME — LIMITATIONS ON AGENT’S AUTHORITY-VALIDITY OF SECRET AGREEMENT.</p> <p>A principal cannot escape responsibility for the acts of a sub-agent of its agent, by reason of a secret agreement between such individuals that the sub-agent was to be agent of the agent and not of the principal, when such sub-agent is held out to the public as the direct agent of the principal and clothed with authority to do business for it.</p> <p>ACTION ON POLICY OF INSURANCE — LIMITATIONS TO SUIT — WAIVER.</p> <p>The condition in a policy of life insurance that action thereon must be commenced within one year from the death of the insured is waived by the company when its general agent induces the assured thereunder to withhold suit until the return from the Klondike country of its agent to whom it is claimed premiums had been paid, and, if so paid to such agent, the company would then pay the policy without suit.</p> <p>SAME-UNREASONABLE DELAY.</p> <p>' Where the limitation upon action on a policy of insurance was one year, and action thereon was not begun until nearly a year and eight months after the death of the insured, by reason of a waiver of the limitation by the company, and the question of the reasonableness of the delay was submitted to the jury and found by them in favor of plaintiff, this court will not, as a matter of law, say that the delay