Mellon v. Ohio German Fire Insurance

Citations

• 40 Pa. Super. 623
• 1909 Pa. Super. LEXIS 651

Syllabus

<p>Insurance — Fire insurance — Construction of policy — Manufacturing establishment — Running plant at night.</p> <p>1. In determining what a contract of insurance means, the circumstances surrounding the making of it, and affecting the subject to which it relates may be taken into consideration in ascertaining the meaning of its provision as the parties understood it. Such a contract should have a reasonable interpretation, and when its words are susceptible of two interpretations that should be adopted which will sustain a claim to the indemnity to secure which it was entered into.</p> <p>2. Where the subject of fire insurance is a manufacturing establishment for the slaughter of live stock and the manufacture and cure of meat products, and the plant contains refrigerating appliances and electric light apparatus, a stipulation in the policy that the plant is not to be operated in whole or in part at night later than ten o’clock, is not to be construed as prohibiting the running of the electric light and cold storage plant after the hour named.</p> <p>3. In such a case it was not in contemplation of the parties that the daily product of the plant should be spoiled from lack of refrigeration, or that there should not be any light about the premises after ten o’clock or that all steam should be withdrawn from the boiler or all smoke blown out of the smokehouse before ten o’clock. Such an interpretation of the contract would permit the insurer to close the plaintiff’s manufactory or forfeit the indemnity secured by the policy.</p>