Murray v. Home Benefit Life Ass'n (1891) · DecisionDepot

Murray v. Home Benefit Life Ass'n

Name: California Superior Court Tentative Rulings
Creator: DecisionDepot
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

California Supreme Court Aug 5, 1891 No. No. 13356Published

Before: Haven

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Holding. The court held that an insurance company waives its right to claim a forfeiture for non-payment of assessments when it subsequently sends a notice requesting payment of a future assessment, thereby treating the policy as still in force.

Issues

Whether an insurance company waived its right to declare a forfeiture of a policy due to non-payment of prior assessments by sending a notice for a future assessment.

Disposition. reversed

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“the rule is firmly established in this class of cases that if the insurance company, after knowledge of any default for which it might terminate the contract, enters into negotiations or transactions with the assured which recognize the continued validity of the policy, and treat it as still in force, the right to claim a forfeiture for such previous default is waived.”

Synopsis

Appeal from a judgment of the Superior Court of the city and county of San Francisco, and from an order denying a new trial.

The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.

De Haven, J. The plaintiff is the beneficiary named, in an insurance policy upon the life of one Lemuel T. Murray, the policy.being a certificate of membership issued by defendant to said Murray upon accepting him as a member of said Home Benefit Life Association. By the terms of the certificate, the holder was to pay to the defendant six assessments per annum, at stated times and in stated amounts, and it was also provided that no claim was to be made thereunder “ should the [406]member neglect or omit to pay the last assessment that may have been levied on this certificate within thirty days from the date of the notice thereof.” Upon September 1,1886, the assessments which had fallen due on June 1st and August 1st of that year were still unpaid, and the defendant on that day addressed a note to said Murray, calling his attention thereto, with a request that he remit the amount due. At or about the same day it also addressed to him this letter:—

“According to the conditions of your certificate of membership, No. 8361, an assessment amounting to $29.40 will be due and payable at this office on the 1st of October, 1886. Remittances should always be made payable to Home Benefit Life Association,

“San Francisco, Cal.

“ Return this notice with remittance.”

On September 22,18°6, the said Murray, unable from sickness to make the payment in person, sent to the defendant the amount due on assessments for June and August of that year, which the defendant declined to receive, its president saying that he could not, under the circumstances, “but would be only too happy to do so” when Murray should come and tender it himself. Murray died on September 30, 1886. The plaintiff was non-suited, and the only question before us is, whether, upon the foregoing facts, the certificate or policy was in force at the date of Murray’s death.

There can be no doubt that the failure of the deceased to pay the assessments of June and August within thirty days after notice thereof released the defendant from all further liability upon the certificate held by him, if the defendant company had so elected; but conditions like that before quoted from this certificate, which, in effect, provide for a forfeiture of all rights thereunder unless payment of assessments is made within the time specified, may always be waived by the [407]

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The respondent, while not disputing the general rule that a forfeiture may be waived at .the option of the person entitled to enforce it, insists that the letters of the defendant, above referred to, show only an offer by it to [408]waive the previous default in the payment of the June and August assessments upon condition that such past-due assessments were immediately paid, and while the insured continued in the same state of health. There are no such conditions expressed in these letters, and we do not think any such arise therefrom by legal implication. The one, calling attention to the assessments already due, and requesting payment, specified no time within which such payment was to be made. A tender, therefore, within a reasonable time would have been sufficient to satisfy the requirements of this letter, and it cannot be said as a matter of law that the tender actually made was not within such time. But the letter notifying the insured that an assessment would be due and payable on October 1st, and in substance requesting payment, of itself constituted a waiver of the previous default, and must be-construed as an unconditional offer to accept payment of that assessment on or before the date named. It was, in effect, an assertion that the certificate was still in force, and, notwithstanding previous defaults known to the defendant, would remain in force until the dale therein named for such payment. As already stated, this notice was sent after full knowledge by defendant of the non-payment of the previous assessments; and if it was the intention to make the acceptance of the amount to become due on this assessment conditional upon the payment of such prior assessments, immediately upon the receipt of the other letter, it should have so stated; but not having done so, we think its legal effect was to waive the previous forfeiture, and continue the certificate in force until October 1st; and this being so, the insured had the right at any time after receiving it, and before October 1st, to make payment of all assessments accruing prior thereto, and necessary to be made in order to give the certificate continued existence.

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