Shaffer v. Spangler

Citations

• 144 Pa. 223
• 22 A. 865
• 1891 Pa. LEXIS 602

Syllabus

<p>(a) A creditor, having obtained a policy of insurance for $2,000 on the life of his debtor, and made some further advances, took out a second policy for $2,000, at the debtor’s suggestion, agreeing, as a part of the arrangement under which it was applied for, to pay the latter’s funeral expenses at his death.- The policies were collected on suits against the insurers:</p> <p>1 In an action against the creditor by the administrator of the debtor, for money collected by the defendant upon the policies, it was error to instruct the jury that the rights of defendant under the second policy depended upon whether its amount was disproportioned to the indebtedness arising subsequent to the date of the first policy.</p> <p>2. Both policies should have been considered together, the true question being whether an insurance of $4,000 was disproportioned to the whole indebtedness. existing when the second policy was issued, under the rule laid down in Ulrich v. Reinoehl, 143 Pa. 238; and if the defendant paid the funeral expenses of the deceased, they should be included in the indebtedness.</p> <p>3. In the case of a recovery against the defendant, the counsel fees paid by him, in the suits against the insurance companies, should be deducted from the sums recovered therein; and it is immaterial whether such counsel fees were taken out of the fund by his attorneys before he received it, or were paid by him out of it after it came into his hands.</p>