DocketNumber: Docket No. 140
Citation Numbers: 192 Mich. 693
Judges: Bird, Brooke, Kuhn, Moore, Ostrander, Person, Steere, Stone
Filed Date: 9/26/1916
Status: Precedential
Modified Date: 9/8/2022
On June 28, 1910, plaintiff issued and delivered to the defendant company its manufacturers’ employers’ liability policy No. E-7712, indemnifying said defendant company against loss occasioned by claims against it by injured employees. The policy contained the following statement:
“No company has canceled or refused to issue any*694 liability, elevator, or boiler insurance to the insured during the past three years, except as follows: None.”
The answer “none” was inserted by the defendant company. On September 8, 1910, plaintiff issued a second policy, No. E-7717, to defendant, which policy contained a similar clause. Between December 28, 1910, and July 14, 1911, plaintiff paid out under this policy $899.97 in indemnities. It is the claim of plaintiff that on July 31, 1911, it learned for the first time that the defendant company had previously been insured by the London Guaranty & Accident Company, Limited, and that this company had canceled its policy with defendant, to take effect June 28, 1910. Plaintiff then notified defendant that it considered the company had committed a breach of warranty, and that the two policies issued by it to defendant were void and of no effect from the beginning, whereupon certain agreements were entered into between the parties, by the terms of which plaintiff paid one-half and defendant one-half of the existing claims against defendant; it .being further agreed that the rights and liabilities of the parties should thereafter be adjusted by consent or through litigation, the payments to be made without prejudice to the rights of either party under and by virtue of the policies. Under these agreements the plaintiff paid on account of claims against defendant the sum of $4,355, and the defendant paid the sum of $3,248.50. On June 7, 1912, the plaintiff brought a suit at law against defendant to recover the $4,355 paid by it, and in that suit the defendant set up a counterclaim for the $3,248.50 contributed by it in the settlement of said claims. The issue thus raised in the suit at law came on for trial in the Wayne county court, and after a full hearing thereon a verdict.was directed against the plaintiff on its claim, and in favor of the defendant on its counterclaim for $3,248.50, upon which verdict judgment was duly entered.
Based upon these alleged facts, it is contended by plaintiff that the representation contained in the two policies in question, to the effect that no company had ever canceled or refused to issue liability insurance to the defendant within three years from the date of said policies, was false and fraudulent. Having acquired said alleged information, plaintiff made a motion for a new trial in the law case, and likewise for leave to amend its declaration so as to permit the introduction of the new evidence regarding the alleged cancellation of the Empire Surety Company policy. The motion for a new trial, when brought on to be heard, was denied, was renewed, and again denied. Plaintiff then appealed to the Supreme Court from the judgment rendered against it in the circuit court, and this court affirmed said judgment (187 Mich. 264 [153 N. W. 709]), and later denied a motion for rehearing.
Having failed in its action at law, plaintiff now files its bill of complaint, setting out at large the proceedings in the action at law, its several motions for new trial, the denial thereof, and the fact that an execution has now been issued against it for the amount of the judgment in the action at law. It prays for a decree vacating and canceling said judgment, and that the defendant, as well as the sheriff of Wayne county, be restrained from levying said execution upon any property of said plaintiff, or otherwise attempting to enforce said judgment. It further prays for a decree canceling its two policies E-7712 and E-7717, and for
In entering a decree dismissing plaintiff’s bill of complaint, the court filed a very exhaustive opinion, going at large into the history of the law case, with reference particularly to the two motions for new trial based upon the alleged discovery of another breach of the contract with reference to the cancellation of prior insurance. The reason given by the court for the denial of the motion for new trial was that the plaintiff’s agent, Erringer, had knowledge of the fact that the defendant was insured in other companies, and in soliciting the insurance for plaintiff company, he must have had knowledge that in some manner such earlier insurance must be terminated. In denying said motion the court said in part:
“It seems to me that under these circumstances the plaintiff company must have known by its agents and those in charge of its business that the defendant company had carried other insurance, and was carrying other insurance at the time of the solicitation by plaintiff, and that this policy of the Empire State Surety Company had been carried by the Ginsburg Sons’ Company, and that by following up the facts through the agents who were here in the city, at least all of the facts that are presented by this motion might have been known.
“For these reasons, the second application for a new trial in this cause is denied.”
“If complainants presented their equities fully on the motion for a new trial, there is no legal justification for presenting the same matters again in this form; if they did not make a full showing then, they give no excuse now for the failure to do so; and in either case this suit is not maintainable.”
In Gray v. Barton, 62 Mich. 186 (28 N. W. 813), this court said:
“It seems to us that the complainant cannot ask, in a court of equity, for a new trial upon the ground of the misconduct of the jury. That matter he has litigated once upon the merits before the proper tribunal, in a court of law, and the decision there made by Judge Montgomery must be considered res judicata as far as that question is concerned. It was a matter resting in the discretion of the judge who tried the case. If he abused that discretion, this court was open to the complainant upon proceedings by mandamus to review his action. The complainant did not apply here, and the decision is therefore final. It does not avail him that he was not able to procure at that time all the evidence of the intoxication -and unfairness of the jurors that he now possesses. If the question was gone into at all, he is precluded from opening the issue again, and his bill shows that affidavits were submit*698 ted, tending to show, and also tending to disprove, the bias and drunkenness alleged. * * * Equity will not relieve a party against a judgment at law on the ground of its being contrary to justice, unless the defendant was ignorant of his defense pending the suit, or facts could not be received as a defense at law, or unless, without any neglect or default on his part, he was prevented by fraud or accident, or the act of the opposite party from availing himself of his defense.”
See, also, Kelleher v. Boden, 55 Mich. 295 (21 N. W. 346); Valley City Desk Co. v. Insurance Co., 143 Mich. 468 (106 N. W. 1125), and the case of Folsom v. Ballard, 70 Fed. 12 (16 C. C. A. 593). In that court, three judges sitting, it was said:
“The motion for a new trial was filed in a law court in apt time, and considered upon its merits and overruled by the court during the term at which it was filed. * * * We are very clear that a bill in equity for a new trial cannot be maintained in such a case. A court of equity possesses no appellate or supervisory power over courts of law. And it is well settled that where a motion for a new trial has been made in the trial court and refused, it cannot be successfully renewed in the form of a bill in equity in a chancery court, on the same grounds.”
See, also, Hendrickson v. Bradley, 85 Fed. 508 (29 C. C. A. 303).
It seems to be the contention of appellant that the trial court in the law action passed only upon plaintiff’s motion for a new trial, and, having denied that, he could not, and did not, pass upon plaintiff’s motion for leave to amend its declaration. The further contention is that the matter sought to be litigated in the chancery proceeding was therefore not an issue in the law case. Counsel for appellant admits that his fifth ground for the granting of a new trial was so-called newly discovered evidence of the cancellation of the. Empire policy. He asserts, however, that although
The decree dismissing the bill is ¿ffirmed, with costs.