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much of said charge as is included in brackets. Judgment for plaintiffs, and error assigned by defendant. Matt. H. Carpenter, for plaintiff in error. The great error of the instruction is that it assumes that the company was then under the obligation to keep a local agent in the vicinity of the residence of the assured, and give the assured notice thereof. There is nothing in the law of Mississippi or of New York, or in the policy itself, which requires the company to do this. In New York Life Ins. Co. vs. Davis (95 U. S. 425), it was decided, in construing this form of policy, "that the legal effect of the policy itself was, that payment should be made to the company at its domicile." The case does not proceed upon the theory of any custom in relation to this branch of business, because no proof was offered that such custom existed; nor does the idea of custom enter as an element into the instruction excepted to. (See Adams vs. Otterback, 15 How. 539.) The fact that the agents of the company had notified the defendant in error to whom to make particular payment of premiums (which became due prior to November 11, 1871), was not such an act on the part of the company as amounted to a permission to the assured not to make payment until notified. The agent could not waive payment of the premium until notice was given by him to whom and where to pay it. On the contrary, the policy expressly prohibited him from doing so. This provision can not be set aside upon any act of the agent and the assured. The clause is as much a part of the contract as any other, and the defendant in error is as much bound by it; and it can not be set aside upon any act of the agent and the assured. (Chase vs. Ins. Co., 20 N. Y. 52; Buffum vs. Mut. Ins. Co., 3 Allen, 360; New York Life Ins. Co., vs. Statham et al., Otto, 31.)

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The case, then, is this: The policy was completely forfeited by non-payment of premium November 11, 1871, and for more than a month thereafter, and not until the assured was near death, was any effort made to revive it. Therefore, there can be no doubt that all rights under the policy were lost.

P. Phillips and W. Hallett Phillips, for defendants in error. The premiums were to be paid to agents to whom the company sent the usual receipts. If, after the revocation of the power conferred on Stevens as local agent, the company had said to the assured, I will notify you as each payment becomes due, to whom I will send the receipt, it could not take advantage of the non-payment in November, when it had failed to give the promised notice. The obligation to give such notice can equally arise from the actions of the company, as from express words. The principle that no one shall be permitted to deny that he intended the natural consequences of his acts, when he has induced others to rely on them, is as applicable to insurance companies as to individuals. The doctrine of waiver, as asserted against the companies, to prevent the strict enforcement of conditions contained in their policies, is only another form for the doctrine of estoppel. (Ins. Co. vs. Woolff, 5 Reporter, 1.) There is no stipulation in the policy as to where the payments of premiums are to be made, and the law of Mississippi, made for the convenience and security of its citizens, requires insurance companies to have agents in the State, whose duty and responsibility are defined in Sections 57, 58, 59, Rev. Code, 1857, p. 303.

BRADLEY, J. (After stating the facts.) We have recently, in the case of Life Ins. Co. vs. Norton, 96 U. S. (S. C. 5 Reporter, 385), shown that forfeitures are not favored in the law, and that courts are always prompt to seize hold of any circumstances that indicate an election to waive a forfeiture, or an agreement to do so on which the party has relied and acted. Any agreement, declaration, or course of action on the part of an insurance company which leads a party insured honestly to believe that by conforming thereto a forfeiture of his policy will not be incurred, followed by due conformity on his part, will and ought to estop the company from insisting upon the forfeiture, though it might be claimed under the express letter of the contract. The company is thereby estopped from enforcing the forfeiture. The representations, declarations, or acts of an agent contrary to the terms of the

policy, of course, will not be sufficient unless sanctioned by the company itself. Ins. Co. vs. Mowry, 96 U. S. (S. C. 5 Reporter, 417.) But where the latter has, by its course of action, ratified such declarations, representations, or acts, the case is very different.

In the present case it appeared that the company had discontinued its agency at the place of residence of the insured soon after the policy was issued, and had given him notice by mail, from time to time, as the premium installments became due, where and to whom to pay them; sometimes at Savannah, several hundred miles, and sometimes at Vicksburg, a hundred and fifty miles from his residence. Such notice, it would seem, had never been omitted prior to the maturity of the last installment. The effect of the judge's charge was: that if this was the fact, and if no such notice had been given on that occasion, and the failure to pay the premium was solely due to the want of such notice, it being ready, and being tendered as soon as notice was given, no forfeiture was incurred. We think the charge was correct under the circumstances of this case. The insured had good reason to expect and to rely on receiving notice to whom and where he should pay that installment. It had always been given before; the office of the company was a thousand miles away; and they had always directed him to pay to an agent, but to different agents at different times.

Although, as we held in the case of Ins. Co. vs. Davis (95 U. S. 425), the legal effect of a policy, when nothing appears to the contrary, may be that the premium is payable at the domicile of the company; yet it can not be expected or understood by the parties that the policy is, in ordinary circumstances, to be forfeited for a failure to tender the premium at such domicile, when the insured resides in a distant State and has been in the habit, under the company's own direction, to pay to an agent there; and has received no notice that the contrary will be required of him. He would have a just right to say that he had been misled.

The business of

Let us look at the matter as it stands. life insurance is in the hands of a few large companies, who

are generally located in our large commercial cities. Take a company located, like the plaintiff in error, in New York, for example. It solicits business in every State of the Union, where it is represented by its agents, who issue policies and receive premiums. Could such company get one risk where it now gets ten, if it was expected or understood that it was not to have local agents accessible to the parties insured to whom premiums could be paid instead of having to pay them at the home office in New York? The universal practice is otherwise. Local agents are employed. The business could not be conducted on its present basis without them. Now, suppose the local agent is removed, or ceases to act, without the knowledge of the policy-holders, and their premiums become due, and they go to the local office to pay them, and find no agent to receive them, are these policies to be forfeited? Would the plaintiffs in error, or any other company of good standing, have the courage to say so? We think not. And why not? Simply because the policy-holders would have the right to rely on the general understanding produced by the previous course of business pursued by the company itself, that payment could be made to a local agent, and that the company would have such an agent at hand, or reasonably accessible. We do not say that this course of business would alter the written contract, or would amount to a new contract relieving the parties from their obligation to pay the premium to the company, if they can find no agent to pay to. The obligation remains. But we are dealing with the question of forfeiture for not paying at the very day; and, in reference to that question, it is a good argument in the mouths of the insured to say: "Your course of business led us to believe that we might pay our premiums at home, and estops you from exacting the penalty of forfeiture without giving us reasonable notice to pay elsewhere." The course of business would not prevent the company, if it saw fit, from discontinuing all its agencies, and requiring the payment of premiums at its counter in New York. But, without giving reasonable notice of such a change, it could not insist upon a forfeiture of the policies for want of prompt

payment caused by their failure to give such notice. In the case of Ins. Co. vs. Davis, cited above, the agent's powers were discontinued by the occurrence of the war, of which all persons had notice; and the law of non-intercourse between belligerents prevented any payment at all; and the policy became forfeited and ended without any fault attributable to either of the parties. The case, therefore, was entirely different from the present; and it was in consequence of such forfeiture in the absence of fault that we held, in the case of Ins. Co. vs. Statham, 93 U. S. 24 (S. C. 3 Law and Eq. Rep. 304), that the insured was entitled to recover the equitable value of his policy.

In the present case it seems to us that the charge of the judge was in substantial conformity to the principles we have laid down. The insured, residing in the State of Mississippi, had always dealt with agents of the company, located either in his own State or within some accessible distance. He had originally taken his policy from, and paid his first premium to, such an agent; and the company had always, until the last premium became due, given him notice what agent to pay to. This was necessary, because there was no permanent agent in his vicinity. The judge rightly held that, under these circumstances, he had reasonable cause to rely on having such notice. The company itself did not expect him to pay at the home office; it had sent a receipt to an agent located within thirty miles of his residence; but he had no knowledge of this fact, at least such was the finding of the jury from the evidence.

We think there was no error in the charge, and the judgment is affirmed.

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