Kansas City Life Ins. Co. v. Jinkens
Kansas City Life Ins. Co. v. Jinkens
Opinion of the Court
This suit was brought by ap-pellee, Mrs. Jinkens, on an insurance policy, issued by appellant, on the life of Miss Maude Jinkens, with loss payable to plaintiff, the mother of the said insured. The insurance company answered that the premium becoming due on the said policy on July 31, 1915, was not paid; and, further, that settlement of said premium was made by the said Maude Jinkens by the payment of the sum of $4 in cash, and by the execution and delivery of a premium note for the sum of $27.94, dated July 31, 1915, payable to the insurance company, 30 days after date; that said policy of insurance, among other provi-, sions, contained the following:
“All * * * premiums are due and payable in advance at the home office of the company without notice. * * * Upon failure to pay a premium on or before the date when due, or upon failure to pay any premium note when due, this policy will become null and void without any action or notice by the company, and all rights shall be forfeited to the company,” etc.
That said premium note was not paid at maturity or at any time thereafter, prior to the death of the said Maude Jinkens, and that said policy was therefore void. The plaintiff, by supplemental petition, denied under oath the execution and delivery of the said note by the said Maude Jinkens.
The issue upon the trial was as to the execution and delivery by the insured of the note referred to. The officers of the defendant company testified that the note was received by mail on August 30, 1915, at which time a receipt for the payment of the.pre^ *773 mium was issued to the said Maude Jinkens, which receipt was in evidence at the trial. No correspondence with the said deceased in regard to the note and no evidence as to the genuineness of the signature of the said Maude Jinkens to said note was offered, except the introduction of admittedly genuine signatures for the purpose of comparison. The mother of the defendant expressed it as her opinion that the signature to the note was not that of her daughter, and other evidence was introduced which cast some doubt as to the transaction. The burden of proof, as we shall hereafter show, was upon the defendant to prove the execution and delivery of said note by the said Maude Jinkens; and, without going into further detail as to the facts, we hold that the issue as to whether the note was executed and delivered to the company by Maude Jinkens, in part payable for the premium becoming due July 31, 1915, was properly one for the jury, and overrule appellant’s first and second assignments of error.
The case was submitted on special issues, the first three issues being as follows:
“(1) Did the insured, Maude Jinkens, execute and deliver to the defendant the note for $27.-94, which is described in defendant’s answer? (2)Did the Kansas City Life Insurance Company receive anything of value besides the $4 which it is admitted it received as payment for the premium for the year beginning July 31, 1915? (3) If you have answered question No. 1 in the affirmative, then did the defendant, the insurance company, accept said note and $4 in money as payment for the premium for the year beginning July 31, 1915?”
To the first issue the jury answered, “No.” To the second and third issues its answer was “Tes.” The other issues submitted have no bearing on the question which we are now to consider. Appellant assigns error on the action of the court in entering judgment for the plaintiff on this verdict because of the uncertainty created by the conflicting answers to the first and the second and third issues.
“This policy is issued on the twenty-year accumulation plan, and will receive its full share of the profits as apportioned by the company at the end of that period if the assured be then living- and if all the premiums have been paid hereon. * * * In consideration of the guaranteed payment in cash from the. surplus by the coupons hereto attached, the insured hereby agrees that any annually determined portion of the divisible surplus, in addition to the amounts stipulated in the coupons, shall be allowed to accumulate until all premiums contracted hereon have been paid.”
As we construe the policy, the insured would get no benefit of the profits or divisible surplus apportioned by the company except on the following conditions: That he should survive its term; that it should be kept in force during said full term, and the accumulated dividends should then exceed the guaranteed dividends already paid on *774 the policy. So that in any event the interest of the trial judge appears rather remote, and in a sense at least contingent, It was held in the casé of New York Life Insurance Co. v. Sides, 46 Tex. Civ. App. 246, 101 S. W. 1163, where tire policy provided for payment to the insured at the end of 20 years if he should be living and the policy should then he in force, its share of accumulated profits apportionable to the policyj and where it further appeared that the company was a mutual company having no capital stock and being owned by the policy holders, that the trial judge holding such policy was necessarily interested in the assets of the company as one of the owners thereof. It does not appear whether the appellant company is a mutual company, nor does it appear that the payment or nonpayment of the policy sued on will affect directly the profits or divisible surplus in which the policy of the trial judge is entitled to participate; the evidence being silent as to how, under the laws of its creation and the charter and by-laws of the company, this surplus apportioned by the company to the policy holders is to be ascertained. So that it does not even appear that the payment or nonpayment of the policy sued upon would have any direct effect on any fund in which the trial judge’s policy is entitled to participate and out of which he might eventually receive a dividend in addition to the guaranteed payments already paid. We therefore conclude that the evidence was insufficient to show that the trial judge was disqualified. City of Oak Cliff v. State, 97 Tex. 391, 79 S. W. 1068.
Reversed and remanded.
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