Legare

This appeal is from a judgment on a verdict for $2,826.85. The action was brought by the respondent, a policy-holder, to recover from the appellant, an insurance company, the share of the surplus earnings, apportioned at the end of the twenty-year period, to which the respondent claims his policy is entitled. The appellant claims that such share is $1,025.87 and no more, which amount it always has stood ready to pay. The position of the respondent is that the policy contains an outright promise to pay a stated figure as the policy’s share of the surplus earnings, which view was taken by the jury. The question presented is whether a so-called illustration sheet attached to a policy of life insurance is a part of the contract and, if so, whether the legal effect of an “option” therein is a promise to pay'the insured (at his election) the amount therein shown, or merely an estimate and a prediction that such amount ought to be coming to him at the end of twenty years.

In 1909 the appellant issued to the respondent a $5,000 endowment policy, on the first page of which is found, among other prómises, the following: “Twenty years from the date hereof, which is the end of the dividend…