Schlachter

The People appeal from two judgments of dismissal, after orders sustaining general demurrers to the informations.

The defendants Schlachter and Gartman were charged with violations of section 549 of the Penal Code, by presenting four separate false proofs of loss against four different companies upon contracts of insurance and indemnity, for personal injuries claimed to have been sustained in four separate accidents. The names of the insurance carriers are set out in the several counts of the information as the parties to whom the false proofs of loss were presented.

Defendant LaPierre was accused of the same description of crime as those above mentioned.

According to appellant’s brief: “The demurrer was sustained on the ground that section 549 of the Penal Code is so limited by the headline of the chapter in which it appears, and the headnote of the section itself, that it does not cover false proofs of loss made on policies or contracts of accident insurance.”

As originally enacted in 1872, section 549 of the Penal Code read as follows: “Every person who presents or causes to be presented any false or fraudulent claim, or any proof in support of any such claim, upon any…