State v. Eagle Insurance
State v. Eagle Insurance
Opinion of the Court
This proceeding is prosecuted on the relation of W. H. Kinder, superintendent of insurance of the state of Ohio, against The Eagle Insurance Company of Cincinnati, and John K. Green and Samuel P. Post, president
The defendants answer, and set up two defenses. First, they aver that under the provisions of the act of March 22, 1850, which constitutes the charter of the insurance company, no power was reserved to alter, amend or repeal the charter; and that if sections 3654 and 3655 impose any duty upon the defendants or either of them, they would impair the obligation of the contract embraced in the charter of the company, and would be in violation, of section 28, of article 2, of the constitution of Ohio, and of section 10, of article 1, of the constitution of the United States.
The second defense contained in the answer is that of res judicata. It is averred by the defendants, that on or about July 27, 1886, the attorney general filed a petition in the court of common pleas of Franklin county, Ohio, in which the state of Ohio was plaintiff and The Eagle Insurance Company of Cincinnati was defendant, setting forth that the company and its officers, after due notice and request, had failed, neglected and refused to deposit, either on the first day of January, 1886, or within thirty days thereafter, the statement required by section- 3654, of the Revised Statutes, showing the condition of the company on the thirty-first day December, 1885, and praying judgment against the company for the five hundred dollars penalty
To the answer in this proceeding, and to each of the defenses therein contained, the plaintiff demurs.
The Eagle Insurance Company is a corporation, created before the adoption of the present constitution, claiming to exercise certain rights, privileges and franchises, under a special act of the legislature which constitutes its charter. Obviously, such charter or act of the legislature, in connection with its acceptance, may be regarded as a contract, and one which, so long as the body corporate faithfully observes it, the legislature is constitutionally restrained from impairing, by annexing without the consent of the corporation new terms and conditions, onerous in their operation, or inconsistent with a reasonable construction of the contract. And any act of the legislature which violates any corporate right, secured by such charter of the corporation, without its consent, is void as against the constitution of the state and the United States.
But, in determining the corporate rights secured by the charter, the true rule of construction is, that corporations take nothing by intendment but what is necessary to the enjoyment of that which is expressly granted. When a company is incorporated it is to be inferred, that the legislature intended it should exercise only those corporate powers that might be necessary to carry on the business for which the company was organized. And it may be stated
Though there may be no reservation in the charter of incorporation that the state shall have the right to repeal, alter, or amend it at pleasure, the grant of corporate powers, or of exemptions from the operation of general laws, will carry only those that are expressly or unambiguously granted. “The rights of the public are never presumed to be surrendered to a corporation, unless the intention to surrender clearly appears in the law.” Perrine v. Chesapeake mid Delaware Canal Co., 9 How. (U. S.) 192. “A franchise must be created by express terms and cannot be inferred from the mere silence of the charter.” Zanesville v. Gas Light Co., 47 Ohio St. 31. As expressed by Chief Justice Marsharr in the Dartmouth College case, “A corporation possesses only those properties which the charter of its creation confers upon it, either expressly, or ‘as incidental to its very existence.”
When it is sought, therefore, to subject a company, claiming rights under a special charter, to the provisions of a general law, the question at once arises, are the requirements of the law plainly inconsistent with the enjoyment of the charter rights and franchises granted to the company. If the provisions of the general law are consistent with the rights of the corporation as secured by its charter, the corporation will be subject to the law-making power to the same extent as unincorporated individuals. It need hardly be stated, that when the legislature, by a special act or charter, clothes individuals with corporate power, they are not to be presumed as forever thereafter emancipated from all legislative control as to their corporate acts and franchises. A contract of exemption from such further legislation can never be implied.
Section 3654 of the Revised Statutes, provides that, the president or vice-president and secretary of each insurance company organized under any law of this state shall annually, on the first day of January, or within thirty da3rs thereafter, prepare, under oath, and deposit in the office of the 'superintendent of insurance, a statement of the condition of such company on the thirty-first day of December then next preceding, exhibiting in form, and with specifications in •detail, as prescribed by the statute: (1). The amount of the capital stock of the compa^r; (2) The property or assets ield by the company; (3) The liabilities of the company; (4)
The main proposition of counsel for The Eagle Iusurance Company is, that the obligation of the contract which the company had with the state, in its charter, will be impaired if that company be held subject to the operation of sections 3654 and 3655. Upon- an examination of the company’s charter, we discover no repugnance between the requirements of those sections of the statute and the provisions of the charter. The charter does not, either in express terms or by implication, absolve the company from the duty of preparing and depositing the required statement of its condition; and it contains no language which, even by a strained construction or remote inference, would exempt the company from a compliance with the provisions of those sections.
Those provisions we regard as no more than reasonable regulations for the safety of the capital, interest of the stockholders, and security of the public, entirely consistent with the corporate rights granted to the insurance company in its charter, and especially proper as a safe-guard for policy holders, entitled to know whether the affairs of the company are in a sound or unsound condition. The fact that The Eagle Insurance Company may be a corporation conducting its business upon a sound basis, does not release it from the operation of those reasonable regulations that may be prescribed by the legislature to promote the purposes of its. creation, and which are not repugnant to its charter.
The regulation that the defendant and other insurance companies shall file the statement of their condition as required by statute, being such as we deem the public good requires, the reasonableness of such regulation'may be illustrated by a reference to what the defendant company may be capable of under its charter, relative to the object of its incorporation. It cannot be said, that the legislature has been shorn of all power by general law, to see that the defendant keeps within the line of its charter, and performs, its corporate duties.
The charter fixes the capital stock of the association at one hundred thousand dollars, which may be increased to-
Again, the charter, in section 1, authorizes the company to hold such real estate only as shall be necessary for the transaction of its business, or may be taken as security for ■or in payment of a debt. Section 3654 properly provides, that in the statement of an insurance company’s condition, there shall be specified the value of the real estate owned by such company, where it is situate, and the value of the "buildings thereon.
Again, under the charter, it is not lawful for the corporation to use or employ any part of its capital stock, money of other funds, in buying or selling goods, wares or merchandise, nor in the purchase of real estate, except as provided in the first section of the charter; nor shall the company trade in the business of exchange brokerage, or in any manner engage in the business or operation of banking. An essential aid, in the enforcement of these prohibitions, is afforded by requiring in the company’s statement a specification of its assets and liabilities.
Furthermore, by the charter it is provided, that the president and directors shall declare such dividends of the profits of the business of the company as shall not impair, nor in anywise lessen the capital stock of the same. Whether this rule is disregarded or complied with, the superintendent of insurance may be enabled to discover through a statement
In Chicago Life Insurance Company v. Needles, 113 U. S-574, we find facts and conclusions bearing directly upon the decision we have reached in the case at bar. The Chicago Rife Insurance Company was incorporated by special act of the General Assembly of Illinois, and vested with power to carry on the business of life insurance. Two years after the charter was granted the company, a general law of the state was approved and took effect, which required, among-other things, that every life insurance company incorporated in Illinois, should transmit to the auditor of state, on or before the first day of March, in each year, a sworn statement 'of its business, standing, and affairs, in the form prescribed or authorized by law, and adapted to its business,- and empowered that officer to address' inquiries to any company in relation to its doings or condition, or any other matter connected with its transactions, to which it was required to make prompt reply; and made it the auditor’s, duty to make, or cause to be made, an examination of its condition and affairs, whenever he deemed it expedient to-do so, or whenever he had good reason to suspect the correctness of any annual statement, or that its affairs were in an unsound condition. The auditor of state acting under this and a subsequent statute, made an examination into-the affairs of The Chicago Rife Insurance Company, found it to be insolvent, instituted proceedings to wind up its affairs, and a final judgment was rendered enjoining the company from further prosecution of 'its business. From that judgment a writ of error was prosecuted to the Supreme ■ Court of the state, and to reverse the judgment of that court error was prosecuted in the Supreme Court of the United States.
It was contended by counsel, that the obligation of the contract which the company had with the state, in its orig-
“This position,” said Justice Harran, delivering the opinion of the court, “cannot be sustained, consistently with the power which the state has, and, upon every ground of public policy, must always have, over corporations of her own creation. Nor is it justified by any reasonable interpretation of the language of the company’s charter-The right of the plaintiff in error to exist as a corporation,, and its authority, in that capacity, to conduct the particular business for which it was created, were granted, subject to the condition that the privileges and franchises conferred upon it should not be abused, or so employed as to defeat the ends for which it was established. Although no such condition is expressed in the company’s charter, it is necessarily implied in every grant of corporate existence.
“Equally implied, in our judgment, is the condition that the corporation shall be subject to such reasonable regulations, in respect to the general concfuct of its affairs, as the legislature may, from time to time, prescribe, which do not materially interfere with or obstruct the substantial enjoyment of the privileges the state has granted, and serve only to secure the ends for which the corporation is created. If this condition be not necessarily implied, then the creation of corporations, with rights and franchises which do not belong to individual citizens, may become dangerous to the public welfare through the ignorance, or misconduct, or fraud of those to whose management their affairs are intrusted.”
The same doctrine is recognized in Commonwealth v. Farmers and Mechanics' Bank, 21 Pick. 542, as applied to the visitatorial power of the state over banks. And the law is clearly stated, to the sanie effect, in the. Opinion of the Justices, 9 Cush. 604, in answer to the question submitted to them by the senate: “Is the corporation known
We come now to consider the question, whether the judgment in the suit brought against the defendant, in July, 1886, in the court of common pleas of Franklin county, to recover a penalty, is a bar to this action; whether by reason of the determination in that suit, the right to require the company to prepare and deposit in the office of the superintendent of insurance a statement of its condition, is res judicata. We do not think that the cause of action in the two cases can be held to be identical. In the one case, it was a failure of the company to file the statutory statement of its condition on the 31st day of December, 1885, and the suit was to recover the penalty prescribed by statute for such failure. In the present case, it is a refusal of the. company to file such statement of its condition on the 31st day of December, 1892, and the proceeding is in mandamus to enforce a specific duty.
It is urged however, in behalf of the defendant, that the subject matter now in controversy was drawn in question, and within the issue in the former judicial proceeding which terminated in a regular judgment on the merits. But the rule is well settled, that an adjudication affects no claims
These cases, and others like them, rest upon the principle that after acquired rights and change of circumstances may prevent the former judgment from operating as an estoppel in subsequent judicial proceedings. And to apply the principle to the case under consideration, where a judgment is rendered, by a court of competent jurisdiction, in favor of a party to the suit, for the reason that otherwise, under an existing law, a chartered right of such party might be placed in peril, the decision should not be conclusive in a subsequent action between the same parties, when the law has been so amended that such right is thereby assured.
The originals of sections 3654 and 3655 of the Revised Statutes, are found in sections 19 and 21 respectively of “An act to regulate insurance companies,” passed April 15, 1867 (64 Ohio Laws 157). Subsequently, it was provided by section 3234 of the Revised Statutes of 1880, as follows: “Corporations created before the adoption of the present constitution, which take any action under or in pursuance of this title (Title II, Part Second, Corporations), shall thereby and thereafter be deemed to have consented, and
But by act of March 8, 1892, (89 Ohio Raws, 73), the proviso to section 3234 was enlarged, so that any fire insurance. company created before the adoption of the present constitution, complying with the requirements of sections 3654 and 3655, would not be deemed to have consented to
Judgment accordingly.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.