Riggs v. Union Life Ins.

Citations

• 129 F. 207
• 63 C.C.A. 365
• 1904 U.S. App. LEXIS 4038

Syllabus

<p>1. Insurance Policy — Fraud—Remedy at Law before Loss-Jurisdiction in Equity.</p> <p>Before a loss under a policy of insurance, the company which issued it has no adequate remedy at law for fraud, false representations, or concealments which procured its issue, and a federal court has jurisdiction in equity of a suit for the surrender and cancellation of the policy.</p> <p>2. Same — Remedy at Law after Loss.</p> <p>After a loss under a policy of insurance, the company which issued it ordinarily has an adequate remedy at law for fraud, false representations, or false concealments which procured its issue by presenting them as a defense to any action that may be brought upon the policy, so that a suit in equity for its surrender and cancellation, commenced after the loss, cannot be maintained in the federal courts in the absence of special facts or circumstances invoking jurisdiction in equity.</p> <p>3. Same.</p> <p>The fact that the action at law on the policy will be brought in a state court does not render the remedy of the company at law in the federal court so inadequate that a suit in equity to avoid the policy, commenced after the loss, may be maintained, where the company has the right to remove the action at law from the state to the federal court.</p> <p>4. Same.</p> <p>Nor does the fact that the license of the company to do business in the state in which the action at law is to be commenced will be revoked if the company removes that action to a federal court render its remedy at law in the federal court so inadequate as to give that court jurisdiction in equity of a suit to cancel the policy.</p> <p>(Syllabus by the Judge.)</p> <p>If 1. See Cancellation of Instruments, vol. 8, Cent. Dig. § 13.</p>