Boak v. New York Life Insurance
Boak v. New York Life Insurance
Opinion of the Court
Opinion by
Unless the evidence produced at the hearing was sufficient to require the chancellor to reform that part of the contract set forth in the ninth paragraph of the bill as requested in the fourth prayer, appellants have no case. No evidence, parol or documentary, was offered which would warrant such a reformation, and the case stands upon the application and the policy itself. Reliance is placed upon Thompson v. Insurance Company, 136 U. S. 287, as authority for the proposition that reformation may be decreed upon the contract itself without evidence of the fraud, accident or mistake required to reform written instruments. In that case, however, the bill averred
Decree affirmed at the cost of the appellants.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Boak v. New York Life Insurance Company
- Status
- Published
- Syllabus
- Insurance — Life insurance — Reformation of policy — Evidence. Where an endowment insurance policy provides that the insured, if living, at a date specified shall be entitled to one of four benefits, and there is nothing in the policy itself to indicate that the beneficiaries, and not the insured, were to be entitled to the benefits named, a court of equity will not reform the policy so as to change the word “insured” to “beneficiaries” in the absence of evidence of the kind, quality and quantity required by a court of equity as a warrant to reform a written instrument.