Hughes v. New York Life Insurance

Citations

• 32 Wash. 1
• 72 P. 452
• 1903 Wash. LEXIS 369

Syllabus

<p>INSURANCE-ACTION ON POLICY-ESTOPPEL.</p> <p>The fact that plaintiff was misled by a mistake of defendant into abandoning a contemplated action on a policy of life insurance for a larger sum, and induced into commencing another one on the strength of defendant’s admission that the insured had signed a substituted application calling for a different form of policy, would not estop defendant from setting up the truth, where there is no showing that the contemplated action was a valid one and is no longer open to plaintiff, and the costs of the present action appear to be the only injury suffered.</p> <p>SAME-PLEADING-ISSUES.</p> <p>In an action on a policy of life insurance, to which the company set up the defense that the application therefor had never been signed by deceased and that the copy furnished plaintiff purporting that he had signed same was a mistake on the company’s part, the sustaining of a demurrer to a reply setting up estoppel to deny the signature, but which failed to deny the affirmative allegations of the answer, would leave no issue upon the genuineness of the signature of the insured.</p>