Va. Fire & Marine Insurance v. Kloeber

Citations

• 31 Va. 749

Syllabus

<p>K purchased a house and lot near Chatham, in Pittsylvania county, iior $4,060, at a sale by a trustee under a deed executed by H. In September, 1872, he applied to the Virginia Fire and Marine Insurance Company for an insurance on the dwelling-house for $3,000. He answered the interrogatories put to him, and to one of them he gave the value of the whole property at $10,000, and to another that there was an incumbrance by the vendor’s lien of $3,500. The policy was issued, which provided, among other things, that any misrepresentation, or concealment, or omission, to make known any fact or feature in the risk that 0 increases the hazard, should avoid the policy, and any interest in the property not absolute, or that is less than a perfect title, must be specifically stated and expressed in the policy, or the insurance should be void. The wife of H did not join in the deed to the trustee, and though she was alive when the policy was issued and suit brought upon it, it did not certainly appear she was married to H when the deed was made—Held :</p> <p>1. The contingent right of dower in the wife of H, if she was his wife at the date of the deed, was not such an interest as shows that the assured had less than a perfect title in the property insured.</p> <p>2. Nor was it such an incumbrance as was contemplated by the parties to the contract of insurance should be disclosed by the assured on the pain f forfeiting his contract for failing to make the disclosure.</p> <p>3. There is nothing in the answers of the assured which amounts to a breach of the warranty.</p> <p>4. If the omission by K to state the fact of the contingent right of dower in the wife of H was fraudulent on the part of K, and it increased the hazard of the insurance, the omission would avoid the policy.</p> <p>5. The question whether the omission by K to state the fact of the contingent right of dower in the wife of H was fraudulent, was a question for the jury, upon all the evidence, and depends upon