Miller v. Fireman's Fund Insurance

This is an action on a fire insurance policy. The cause was tried before a jury. A large number of special issues was found in favor of plaintiffs’ contention and the general verdict was for said plaintiffs in the sum of $2,-586.35, the amount covered by the policy being $3,265. Judgment was entered accordingly, from which and from the order denying a motion for a new trial the appeal has been taken.

The main reliance of appellant is upon the defense set out in the answer, to the effect that the insured, H. T. Miller, at the time he made his application for the policy, “willfully and fraudulently and with a false and fraudulent purpose and with the intention of thereby securing more insurance on said property than he should have had and for the purpose of deceiving defendant,” represented the property to be of much greater value than it was, and also that the proof of loss was willfully false in that it contained a statement of property that was not destroyed, particularly nine thousand two hundred feet of two-inch flooring and twenty thousand shingles, and it also contained the statement that at the time of said fire there was no mortgage on the said above-described property,…