Hartford Fire Insurance v. Wilcox

Citations

• 57 Ill. 180

Syllabus

<p>1. Insurance—verbal contract binding on the company. A verbal contract to insure, based upon a sufficient consideration, and made by a party having an insurable interest in the property, with, an agent having the requisite authority to bind his principal by such contract, may he legal and binding upon the insurance company.</p> <p>2. Agent—when authority is conferred by writing, how his powers arre to be ascertained. It is a general rule, that where an agency is created and conferred by a written instrument, the nature and extent of the authority must be ascertained from the instrument itself, and can not be enlarged by parol evidence of the usage of other agents in like cases, or of an intention to confer additional powers; because that would be to contradict or vary the terms of the written instrument.</p> <p>3. But the doctrine in each case must be understood with the qualifications and limitations properly belonging to it, and the usages of a particular trade or business, or of a particular class of agents, are properly admissible, not for the purpose of enlarging the powers'of the agents employed therein, but for the purpose of interpreting those powers which are actually given; for the means ordinarily used to execute the authority are included in the power, and may be resorted to by all agents, and especially commercial agents.</p> <p>4. Same—erdarrgement of written authority—when shown by parol. Although in general, the maxim is true, that where an express power is conferred by writing, it can not be enlarged by parol evidence—or an authority be implied where there exists an express one—yet the maxim is applicable only to cases where the whole authority grows solely out of the -writing, and the parol evidence applies to the same subject matter at the same point of time, and therefore, in effect, seeks to contradict, vary or control the effect of the writing. Where parol evidence seeks to establish a subsequent enlargement of the original authority, or to