Huber v. Manchester Fire Assurance Co.

This action is on a policy of insurance issued by the defendant on the 6fch of June, 1892, insuring the plaintiff for one year; to an amount not exceeding $1,500, against loss or damage by fire to household furniture therein described, “all contained, and while contained, in the two-story shingle roof frame building and its additions, adjoining and communicating, occupied, and to be occupied, as a' dwelling house and situate No. 445 on the East side of South Salina St., in Syracuse, New York.” A fire occurred late in the evening of September 1Y, or early in the morning of September 18, 1892, by which the property was destroyed or injured to the amount, as the jury have found, named in the policy.

In the policy there was the following provision: “This entire-policy, unless otherwise provided by agreement, indorsed hereon or added hereto, shall be void * * * if a building herein described, whether intended for occupancy by owner or tenant, be or become vacant or unoccupied and so remain for ten days.” The defendant, as one of its defenses, claimed that the dwelling house in which the property was, was for more than ten days prior to the fire vacant or unoccupied. The trial court left it to the jury to say whether or not, within the meaning of the policy, the house became or was vacant or unoccupied, and they found in effect that it was not. The defendant claims that upon the undisputed evidence it should have been held by the court that the clause in question was violated, and that the exception of the defendant to a refusal to so rule should be sustained.

The plaintiff rented the house of one Mrs. Dissell and she had lived there for about ten years. She rented it from month to month at thirty dollars a month. The house was fully furnished, and for some time before she left she had been living there alone. On the 24th of August, 1892, she went to Perth Centre, New Brunswick, to visit her mother, and she did not return until after the fire. It was her

The plaintiff, as she testifies, did not intend to give up the house, and the jury had a right to find that the plaintiff when she left intended to return and live at the house as she had before done.

The foregoing are substantially the facts, as shown by the plaintiff or as agreed on at the trial.

It is quite clear that the house in this case was not vacant.

In Herrman v. Adriatic Fire Ins. Co. ( 85 N.Y. 162 ) the plaintiff in June obtained from defendant a policy upon a dwelling house used by him for a summer residence, and upon furniture therein. The policy contained a clause declaring it void in case “ the above-mentioned premises shall * * * become vacant or unoccupied, and so remain for more than thirty days, without notice to and consent of this company in writing.” The plaintiff was then living in the house, but he left with his family in November following, and returned to his city residence to remain for the winter, leaving, however, in the house insured all his furniture and the summer clothing of himself and family. lie also left the house in charge of his farmer, who occupied the farm house, and members of whose family visited and aired the dwelling once a week, and the plaintiff and his wife also visited it once a fortnight. It was held that the dwelling house -was not occupied within the meaning of the policy. At page 169 it is said : “We have already said enough to show our opinion that for a dwelling house to be in a state of occupation, there must be in it the presence of human beings as at their customary place of abode, not absolutely and uninterruptedly continuous, but that must be the place of usual return and habitual stoppage. We think that a verdict of a jury -would not have been allowed to stand that found that this dwelling house was occupied at the time of the fire within the terms of the policy.”

In Johnson v. N. Y. Bowery Fire Ins. Co. ( 39 Hun, 410 ) the provision of the policy was that it should be void, unless proper consent was obtained, “if the building herein described be or become vacant or unoccupied for the purposes indicated in this contract.” The insurance -was upon furniture. The plaintiff and her family, a week or ten days before the fire, left on a visit, leaving no one in the house. During this time the husband of plaintiff came back and stayed in the house over night on two occasions, and he and another man stayed there the night of the fire, and the plaintiff

In Wait v. Agricultural Ins. Co. ( 13 Hun, 371 ) the condition in the policy was that if the dwelling house should cease to be occupied by the owner or occupant in the usual and ordinary manner in which dwelling' houses are occupied as such, then the policy should be void until written consent was obtained. The dwelling was occupied by a tenant who commenced to move out on the fifteenth of March, taking most of his furniture and all his family. No one was left in the house, and on the night of the sixteenth it was destroyed by fire. There was some proof that the plaintiff had no notice of the removal of the tenant. .It was held that the question whether or not the house was unoccupied at the time of the fire, within the meaning of the policy, was properly left to the jury.

In Gibbs v. Continental Ins. Co. ( 13 Hun, 612 ) the question was whether the premises “ became unoccupied.” The plaintiff slept in her daughter’s house adjoining the premises insured, but her furniture and clothing were in her own house, and she spent the day there. It was held that the house was not unoccupied. In Kelly v. Home Ins. Co. (2 N. Y. Wkly. Dig. 479) there was no time named in the condition during which the building might remain unoccupied, and the question was held to be whether there was an' abandonment of the premises as tenantable property, or a vacancy for an unreasonable time. In Woodruff v. Imperial Ins. Co. ( 83 N. Y. 133 ) the form of the condition was “ vacant and unoccupied,” and it clearly appeared that the building was not vacant. In Vanderhoef v. Agricultural Ins. Co. ( 46 Hun, 328 ) the form of the condition was the same as in the W%it Oase (supra), and it was held that the question of occupancy was for the jury. In Stupetski v. Transatlantic Fire Ins. Co. ( 43 Mich. 373 ) it was held that a clause avoiding a policy in case the premises should “ become vacant or unoccupied,” did not apply where a man and his family left home for twelve days to visit a sick daughter, and engaged a person to go to the house daily to look after the house and feed the stock. In Franklin Fire Ins. Co. v. Kepler ( 95 Penn. St. 492 ) the only question -that seems to have been decided was that the premises were not “ vacated ” by a temporary absence of four days. A similar question was considered in Springfield F. & M.

The cases we have thus referred to are cited on the part of the plaintiff as supporting her view of the case. They do not seem to be decisive in that direction.

A dwelling house is unoccupied when no one lives therein. (Herrman v. Merchants’ Ins. Co., 81 N. Y. 184 , 188.) In Paine v. Agricultural Co. (5 T. & C. 620) it is said that “ occupation of a dwelling house is living in it, not mere supervision over it.” In that case the condition was that in case the house shall be “ left unoccupied ” without giving immediate notice to the company the policy should cease The owner and occupant was absent for six weeks for medical treatment, visiting the house, however, upon different occasions, and maintaining a general oversight over the property therein contained. No notice was given to the defendant. It was held that a finding in favor of the plaintiff could not be sustained.

In Barry v. Prescott Ins. Co. ( 35 Hun, 601 ) the tenant of the plaintiff, who occupied the house at the time of the insurance, left it and gave the key to the plaintiff, who thereupon commenced to plaster and whitewash it, and to move her furniture into it with a view of occupying it, and all her furniture had been moved in three days before the fire, but no person was living in it when it took fire. It was held that the house was ifnoccupied within the meaning of the provision that if the premises became vacant or unoccupied, and so remained with the knowledge of the assured, without notice to and consent of the company in writing, the policy should be void. And it was said that under the Herrman Case ( 85 N. Y. 162 ) a dwelling house is to be deemed unoccupied when for the time being it is not the place of abode of human beings and used as such. A similar view was taken in Martin v. Rochester German Ins. Co. ( 86 Hun,

In the present case, when the plaintiff placed practically all her furniture in the one room up stairs, filling it full and locked the room, taking the key away with her, and then left the premises and went to New Brunswick, the house ceased for the time being to be the place of her abode, and no one else was living in it. There was in it no inhabitant The fact that her agent had a key and had the supervision of the property was not an occupation as a dwelling-house. That was decided in the Ilerrman case. After the plaintiff left the house was not inhabitable in the ordinary way unless other furniture was moved in, as the plaintiff’s furniture was locked up. The intention of plaintiff to return in four or five weeks did not make an occupation during her absence according to the doctrine of the Ilerrman case. There the plaintiff intended to return in the spring. Yssurne that as between plaintiff and the owner her tenancy continued and she would be deemed to be in possession, that would not answer the requirement. The plaintiff in the Ilerrman case had beyond doubt the legal possession and occupancy. And so it was in the Barry case.

In this case, as in the Ilerrman case, there was a time fixed within which non-occupancy might exist. The question, therefore, does not arise, as in some of the cases, whether the property was unoccupied for an unreasonable time. The parties contemplated that there might be a non-occupancy for a certain time, thereby presumptively covering the exigencies that might be likely to .arise by reason of sickness or sudden or temporary emergencies and sufficient opportunity was given to enable the parties to protect themselves. It was assumed there might be a temporary absence, but a limit was placed. The plaintiff left on the twenty-fourth of August, and from that time to the time of the fire on the seventeenth or eighteenth of September no one was living in the house.

The principle of the Herrman Case ( 85 N. Y. 162 ) seems to us'to be directly applicable to this case, and following that case we see no escape from the conclusion that upon the undisputed facts it should have been held that the dwelling house became and was unoccupied and so remained for more than ten days.

Hardin, P. J., concurred ; Martin, J., not voting.

Judgment and order reversed and a new trial ordered, costs to abide the event.