New York Life Ins Co v. Fletcher’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 federal appellate · 1 district · 137 state decisions

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 150 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Assuming that the answers of the assured were falsified, as alleged, the fact would he at once disclosed hy the copy of the application annexed to the policy, to which his attention was called. He would have discovered hy inspection that a fraud had been perpetrated, not only upon himself, hut upon the company; and it would have been his duty to make the fact known to the company. He could not hold the policy without approving the action of the agents, and thus becoming a participant in the fraud committed. The retention of the policy was an approval of the application and of its statements. The consequences of that approval cannot after his death ije avoided.” Id., 117 U. S. 534 , 6 Sup. Ct. 844 , 29 L. Ed. 939 .”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Caruthers v. Kansas Mut. Life Ins. · 60 Wash. 2d 91 - Hein v. Family Life Insurance

2. ““It is conceded that the statements and representations contained in the answers, as written, of the assured to the questions propounded to him in his application, respecting his past and present health, were material to the risk to be assumed by the company, and that the insurance was made upon the faith of them, and upon his agreement accompanying them that, if they were false in any respect, the policy to be issued upon them should be void. It is sought to meet and overcome the force of this conceded fact by proof that he never made the statements and representations to which his name is signed; that he truthfully answered those questions ; that false answers written by an agent of the company were inserted in place of those actually given, and were forwarded with the application to the home office; and it is contended that, such proof being made, the plaintiff is not estopped from recovering. But on the assumption that the fact as to the answers was as stated, and that no further obligation rested upon the assured in connection with the policy, it is not easy to perceive how the company can be precluded from setting up their falsity, or how any rigfits upon the policy ever accrued to him. It is, of course, not necessary to argue that the agent had no authority from the company to falsify the answers, or that the assured could acquire no right by virtue of his falsified answers. Both he and the company'were deceived by the fraudulent conduct of the agent. The assured was p”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Henson v. John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance

3. ““It was his duty to read the application he signed. He knew that upon it the policy would be issued, if issued at all. “It would introduce great uncertainty in all business transactions, if a party making written proposals for a contract, with representations to induce its execution, should be allowed to show, after it had been obtained, that he did not know the contents of his proposals, and to enforce it, notwithstanding their falsity as to matters essential to its obligation and validity.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Scott v. New England Mutual Life Insurance