Moulor v. American Life Insurance

Citations

• 111 U.S. 335
• 4 S. Ct. 466
• 28 L. Ed. 447
• 1884 U.S. LEXIS 1788

Syllabus

<p>Contract — Insurance—Exception—False Representations — Practice—Trial.</p> <p>Going to the jury upon one of several defences does not preclude the defendant, at a subsequent trial, from insisting upon other defences, involving the merits, which have not been withdrawn of record or abandoned in pursuance of an agreement with the opposite side.</p> <p>A judgment will not be reversed upon a general exception to the refusal of the court to grant a series of instructions, presented as one request, because there happen to bo in the series some which ought to have been given.</p> <p>The principle reaffirmed, that when a policy of insurance contains contradictory provisions, or has been so framed as to leave room for construction, rendering it doubtful whether the parties intended the exact truth of the applicant’s statements to be a condition precedent to any binding .Contract, the court should lean against that construction which imposes --'Upon the assured the obligations of a warranty.</p> <p>An applicant for life insurance was required to state, categorically, whether he had ever been afflicted with certain specified diseases. He answered that he had not. Upon an examination of the several clauses of the application, in connection with the policy, it was held to be reasonably clear that the company required, as a condition precedent to a valid contract, nothing more than that the insured would observe good faith towards it, and make full, direct and honest answers to all questions, without evasion or fraud, and without suppression, misrepresentation, or concealment of facts with which the company ought to be made acquainted.</p> <p>In the absence of explicit stipulations requiring such an interpretation, it should not be inferred that the insured took a life policy with the understanding that it should be void, if, at any time in the past, he was, whether' conscious of the fact or not, afflicted with the diseases, or any one of them, specified in the questions propo