Fitzgerald v. Baltimore Life Insurance

Stockbridge, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. Bessie Bowen was insured under two policies of the variety-known as Industrial Policies, issued by the Baltimore Life Insurance Company. These policies were for $292 and $142, respectively. The beneficiary named in the policies was Arthur Anderson, whom Bessie Bowen married subsequent to the taking out of these policies, though she continued to use the name of Bessie Bowen after her marriage, and no change was ever made by the company in the name of the beneficiary appearing on the face of the policies.

Arthur Anderson died before Bessie Bowen, but Bessie continued the payment of the premiums after his death, and down until the time of her death they were regularly paid, either by Bessie or by her cousin Edna Bowen. The case was tried upon an agreed statement of facts. From that it does not appear that the policies or receipts for premiums were ever in the possession of Arthur Anderson, or of any one other than Bessie, the insured, or her cousin Edna. After Bessie’s death the company paid to the undertaker a bill for $141 for the funeral expenses, and paid the balance over to Edna Bowen.

Cornelius C. Fitzgerald was appointed administrator of Arthur Anderson, and this suit was instituted by him as such administrator, to recover the amounts named in the two policies. The ninth clause of each of the policies reads as follows: “The Insured may at any time change the beneficiary hereunder by designating the substituted beneficiary upon the company’s form for change of beneficiary, and filing the same at the company’s Home Office, and having the name of the substituted bene ⁶²¹ fieiary entered as such upon the hooks of the company. “The company will, under ordinary circumstances, make payment of whatever sum may become due under the policy to the beneficiary appearing as such upon the company’s books at the time of the death of the insured; hut it reserves the right, under circumstances which appear to its officers to justify its exercise, in order to facilitate prompt and equitable settlements, to make such payment to the executor or administrator of the insured, or to any relative by blood or connection by marriage of the insured, or to any other person appearing- to it to he equitably entitled to the same by reason of having incurred expense in any way on behalf of the insured, or for his or her burial, and the production by or on behalf of the company of this policy and of a receipt signed by any person belonging to either of the above named classes, shall he final and conclusive evidence that the sum so receipted for has been duly received by the person or persons lawfully and rightfully entitled to receive the same.” And relying upon this clause, the Court granted an instruction directing a verdict for t-he defendant. This ruling of the Court was the occasion for the present appeal. Industrial insurance and the provision for “facility ,of payment” in policies of this description have heen before the courts in quite a number of cases in different States.

Without reviewing the decisions at length, the law controlling the present case may be summarized as follows : The contract itself, as embodied in industrial insurance, has heen uniformly held to he a perfectly valid contract. The only point of difference in the decided cases has heen as to the nature of the interest of the beneficiary or the effect of the “facility of payment” clause, under the different forms of language which have been employed by the different companies writing this class of insurance. Industrial