Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 7.djvu/318

 ^06 FKDSBAIi BBPOBTKR. �On the twenty-third day of August, 1877, the assured applied to the company's agent to pay the preinium then due. He had paid the premiums in all previous years to local agents. The company had authorized it, or at least had sanc- tioned it, by a.cceptano6 of the payment. With reference to the premium due August 23, 1877, he received no notice to do otherwise. A notice that the premium would be due on that day, and that the holder of the policy might pay it at the office of the company in New York, or to an agent who should produce areceipt signed byan officerof the company, was mailed by the conapany, but it was not addressed to the complainant, and was not received by him. This was no fault of his. The agent to whom he oiiered to pay the pre- mium refused to accept it. This, under the circumstances, "was the refusai of the company. In the beginning, then, we find that the assured was deprived of the opportunity to pay his premium on the day it was due, and thereby keep his policy in force, by refusai of the company to accept the premium. Moreover, the agent informed the assured that the business of the company would be or then was in the hands of a receiver, and advised him not to make any more payments until the business of the company should be set- tled. Perhaps the agent was not authorized thus to speak for the company, but it is still a material fact that this infor- mation and advice emanated from one with whom the assured ■was authorized to deal as the local representative of the com- pany; and the assured, it appears, was led to rely and rest upon this information. Meantime, the fact was that proceed- ings had been instituted and were then pending in the courts of New York for a dissolution of the corporation; and, on the very day the assured was seeking to paythe premium on his pol- icy in Wisconsin, the company was enjoined in New York from «xercising its corporate rights, privileges, and franchises, ex- cept in certain very limited particulars. It is true that on July 18, 1877, an order was made permitting policy-holders to pay thetr premiums to the United States Trust Company ; but again, by the fault of the inaurance company, notice of this •order was mailed under the wrong address, and was never ��� �