Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 4.djvu/774

 760 PEDBBAL EEPORTBH. �ineured had contracted that the person who procured the insur- ances hould be deemed his agent, he must abide by his agree- ment; and that though, through fault Oi* mistake, that person had, in the application for a policy, misstated to the company the declarations of the assured, whereby there had been brought an untrue representation, yet that, as he had been agreed upon as the agent of the insured, the insured must suffer for the error or the wrong. That case dealt with matters before the issuing of the policy. It is so that the clause in the pol- icy is broad, and takes into the fold of its wording any cir- cumstances whatever, and any transaction relating to the insurance. In its verbal scope it bas to do with acts, as well after as before and at the time of the giving ont of the pol- icy. But, if the insured is to be now bound as having thus contracted, there must be mutuality in the contraet. No maa can serve two masters. If the procurer of the insurance is to be deemed the agent of the insured, and Harmon is to be deemed such procurer, he may not be taken into the serv- ice of the insurer as its agent also; or, if he is feo taken, the insurer must be bound by his acts and words when he stands in its place, and moves and speaks as one having authority from it; and, pro hac vice at least, he does, then, rightfuUy put off his agency for the insured, and put on that for the insurer. �"Hence it was that in Sprague v. HoUand Purchase Ins. Co. 69 N. Y. 128, we held that the same clause, in the policy there put out by that defendant, did not make the insured the principal. * • * In the case in hand the defendant has declared, over the hands of its president and secretary, that a renewal certificate from it will not be valid unless countersigned by the duly-authorized agent of the company at Oswego, New York. It had before sent two such certifi- cates to Harmon, which he had countersigned as such agent and delivered to the plaintiff. The plaintiff had paid to him the premium for those renewals, and he had sent them to the defendant. The defendant treated these two certificates as valid, because countersigned by Harmon. Thereby it asserted that Harmon was its duly-authorized agent. It held ����