Greer-Robbins Co. v. Insurance of State of Pennsylvania

RICHARDS, J.

This was an action upon an insurance policy issued by the defendant to plaintiff on September 23, 1916, covering certain auto supplies and sundries of

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merchandise belonging to the plaintiff, and' being at the time of their destruction by fire in the plaintiff’s building at the northeast corner of Flower and Twelfth Streets, in the city of Los Angeles. The policy in question was a California standard form of fire insurance policy, and the terms thereof, in so far as they relate to the description of the location of the property insured, read as follows: “In consideration of the stipulations herein made, and of $37.50 premium, does insure Greer-Robbins Company, Incorporated ... to an amount not exceeding $2,500.00 to the following described property while located and contained as described herein and not elsewhere, to wit: $2,500.00 on merchandise, materials, sundries, spare and extra parts ... all while contained in or attached to the brick building, in basements or under sidewalks thereof, and its additions, situate in the rear of No. 1158 South Flower Street, being the northeast corner of West 12th Street.”

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Upon the date of said insurance policy the goods in question were located in a rear room of the plaintiff’s building and place of business on the corner of South Flower and Twelfth Streets, in the city of Los Angeles, but were subsequently moved to a front room of said building, where they were at the time of their destruction by fire. It is the appellant’s contention that by the terms of the policy above quoted the obligation of the insurer was to insure said goods only so long as the same were located in the room in the plaintiff’s said building in which they were at the time of their insurance, and that their removal to another part of said building terminated the liability of the insurer.

Upon the trial of the cause it appeared that the building and place of business of the plaintiff at the time of the insurance of said property, and also at the time of the destruction thereof by fire, was a single two-story brick building having a frontage of eighty feet on South Flower Street and 155 feet on Twelfth Street; that a fire wall had been constructed in accordance with a building ordinance of the city of Los Angeles across said building near the middle thereof, through which there were two automatic fire doors connecting the front and rear compartments of said building created by the construction of said fire wall. The trial court found from these facts that the rear portion of the building in which said goods were stored at the time of their insurance did not constitute a separate building or addition.