Murphy v. Royal Insurance

Citations

• 52 La. Ann. 775

Syllabus

<p>Syllabus.</p> <p>1. Whilst this court, exercising the jurisdiction conferred by Article 101 of the Constitution, will not undertake to review, either as to law or fact, all cases which may be decided by other courts of the State (since, if that had been the intention of the framers of the Constitution, all eases would have been placed upon the basis of those in which appeals to the Supreme Court are allowed), nevertheless, the jurisdiction thus conferred will be exercised in any proper case, whether presenting issues of law or fact, or both; the question as to what constitutes a “proper case” depending upon varying circumstances and requiring the exercise of a sound legal discretion.</p> <p>2. An insurance company, like an individual, may limit the authority of its agents, and where direct notice of such limitation, or any notice which a prudent man is bound to regard, is brought home to the assured, he is bound by it, and relies upon any act in excess of such limited authority at his peril.</p> <p>3. where, in a case in which neither fraud, nor error, nor subsequent knowledge and ratification by the company, is alleged or proved, the assured signs a contract in which is embodied the “iron safe clause”, and accepts 'vd retains, until a loss occurs, a policy in which said clause is embodied, and which has printed upon its face, a condition to the effect that no. officer, agent, or representative of the company shall have power to waive, or be deemed to have waived any condition of the policy, unless such waiver shall be written upon, or attached thereto, the assured is bound by such clause, as by a promissory warranty, and by such limitation upon the authority of the agent. And the knowledge being thus brought home to him that the agent with whom he was dealing was without authority, verbally to waive such clause and such condition,- a verbal waiver alleged to have been agreed on by such agent, contemporaneously With the execution of the written contract, even tho