Eagle Insurance Company v. Ohio ex rel. Kinder/Opinion of the Court

by Edward Douglass White

United States Supreme Court

153 U.S. 446

Eagle Insurance Company  v.  Ohio ex rel. Kinder

The only question presented is whether or not the charter of the plaintiff in error exempted it from obligation to comply with the subsequently established police regulations of the state, contained in sections 3654 and 3655 of the Revised Statutes of Ohio. This subject was fully considered by this court in the case of Insurance Co. v. Needles, 113 U.S. 574, 5 Sup. Ct. 681. There the company had been chartered by the state of Illinois to carry on a life-insurance business, and the question was whether subsequently enacted police regulations of that state for the inspection of such business, and for the liquidation thereof, in the event of insolvency, could be enforced against a corporation working under a prior charter without impairing the obligation of the contract. The statute considered in the Needles Case authorized the auditor, whenever the actual funds of any life-insurance company doing business in the state were not of a net value equal to the net value of its policies, according to the 'combined experience' or 'actuaries" rate of mortality, with interest at 4 per cent., to give notice to such company and its agent to discontinue issuing policies in the state until such time as its funds should become equal to its liabilities, valuing its policies as aforesaid. The law, in addition, required every life-insurance company incorporated in Illinois to transmit to the auditor on or before the 1st day of March in each year a sworn statement of its business, standing, and affairs, in the form prescribed and authorized by law. It also empowered the officer to address inquiries to any company in relation to its 'doings and condition,' and any other matter connected with its transactions, which inquiries, it provided, should be 'promptly answered;' and it imposed upon him the duty of making an examination of the condition and affairs of any company, whenever he deemed it expedient to do so, and had reason to suspect the correctness of any annual statement, or that the company was in an unsound condition. By another statute it was provided that if, upon examination of the affairs of any insurance company, the auditor should conclude that it was insolvent, or that its further continuance in business would be hazardous to the insured or the public, he should apply by petition to the judge of any circuit court for an injunction restraining the company from proceeding with its business until further hearing, &c. Upon the case as thus presented the court said:

'The case upon the merits, so far as they involve any question of which this court may take cognizance, is within a very narrow compass. The main proposition of the counsel is that the obligation of the contract which the company had with the state, in its original and amended charter, will be impaired, if that company be held subject to the operation of subsequent statutes regulating the business of life insurance, and authorizing the courts, in certain contingencies, to suspend, restrain, or prohibit insurance companies incorporated in Illinois from further continuance in business. This position cannot be sustained consistently with the power which the state has, and, upon every ground of public policy, must always have, over corporations of her own creation. Nor is it justified by any reasonable interpretation of the language of the company's charter. The right of the plaintiff in error to exist as a corporation, and its authority, in that capacity, to conduct the particular business for which it was created, were granted, subject to the condition that the privileges and franchises conferred upon it should not be abused, or so employed as to defeat the ends for which it was established, and that, when so abused or misemployed, they might be withdrawn or reclaimed by the state in such way and by such modes of procedure as were consistent with law. Although no such condition is expressed in the company's charter, it is necessarily implied in every grant of corporate existence. Terrett v. Taylor, 9 Cranch, 43, 51; Ang. & A. Corp. (9th Ed.) par. 774, note.

'Equally implied, in our judgment, is the condition that the corporation shall be subject to such reasonable regulations, in respect to the general conduct of its affairs, as the legislature may from time to time prescribe, which do not materially interfere with or obstruct the substantial enjoyment of the privileges the state has granted, and serve only to secure the ends for which the corporation was created. Sinking Fund Cases, 99 U.S. 700, 768; Com. v. Farmers' & Mechanics' Bank, 21 Pick. 542; Commercial Bank v. Mississippi, 4 Smedes & M. 497, 503. If this condition be not necessarily implied, then the creation of corporations, with rights and franchises which do not belong to individual citizens, may become dangerous to the public welfare through the ignorance or misconduct or fraud of those to whose management their affairs are intrusted. It would be extraordinary if the legislative department of a government, charged with the duty of enacting such laws as may promote the health, the morals, and the prosperity of the people, might not, when unrestrained by constitutional limitations upon its authority, provide, by reasonable regulations, against the misuse of special corporate privileges which it has granted, and which could not, except by its sanction, express or implied, have been exercised at all.'

These views are decisive of the issue here. An attempt is made to distinguish that case from this upon the ground that, in the former, the proceedings were for the purpose of compelling the company to cease from business because of insolvency; while, in this case, the question is as to the obligation of the company to make the statements required by the statute. This distinction is without foundation. In the Needles Case, the duty was expressly imposed upon the corporation to make statements identical in form and substance with those which insurance companies are required to make under the Ohio statute we are here considering. Many additional police powers were conferred by the Illinois law, among them being the authority which, as stated above, was given to the state auditor to apply for an injunction restraining a company from continuing its business whenever, by its statement, it appeared to him to be insolvent. It is, indeed, true, that the relief there invoked was the restraint of the corporation from doing business on the ground of insolvency. But that case substantially involved not only the right to compel the statement, but the greater right to prevent, in case of insolvency, the continuance of the business of the corporation. Hence, as the greater includes the less, the Needles Case necessarily embraces every issue presented here.

Another contention is that compliance with the provisions in regard to statements of its business would bring the company under the operation of the general law of the state relating to corporations, and thus place it in the position of voluntarily subjecting itself to many provisions which would, if applied, impair the obligations of the charter. In March, 1892 (89 Ohio Laws, 73), the general assembly of Ohio specifically enacted that any fire insurance company which should comply with the requirements of sections 3654 and 3655, or any other police regulations contained in chapter 11 of the title relating to corporations, and chapter 8, tit. 3, pt. 1) of the Revised Statutes of Ohio, relating to the insurance department of the state, 'shall not be deemed to have consented to and shall not be affected by the provisions' of the title relating to corporations.

The judgment of the supreme court of Ohio in the case before us expressly finds that, under the operation of this last provision, the plaintiff in error would not subject its charter to any conditions or modifications by making the statement which it now refuses to submit. Judgment affirmed.

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