Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 1).pdf/204

 done for the insurer into the acts of the insured. The admission of the verbal testimony to show that the application was filled up by the agent of the company, and that the facts were correctly stated to him, but that he, without the knowledge of the insured, misstated them in the application, is not in violation of the rule that verbal testimony is not admissable to vary a written contract. It proceeds upon the ground that the contents of the paper was not the statement of the applicant, and that the insurance company, by the acts of their agents, is estopped to set up that it is the representation of the insured.” A line of cases hold that, where the solicitor of insurance is expressly limited in his authority, in the manner of taking the application, and where such limitation is brought home to the knowledge of the insured at the time the application is signed, the insured is bound by the limitation. Appellant’s counsel labor to show that this case comes within the principle of such cases. We cannot assent to this view of the facts. It is true that defendant’s agent, who took the risk in question, had only the authority to solicit the risk, and procure and forward the application of the plaintiff, and that the plaintiff fully understood that such was the nature and limit of the agent’s powers in the premises. But there is nothing in this case tending to show that there was any restrictions whatever upon the agent’s authority in the matters intrusted to his charge, viz., the matter of soliciting and procuring the application for the insurance in question. As to such duties the agent had, prima facie, plenary powers co-extensive with the matter intrusted to him, and such powers cannot be narrowed by limitations not communicated to the insured. See May, Ins § 144, note 1; Miller v. Insurance Co., 31 Iowa, 232.

The defendant sent its policy direct to the plaintiff, and the latter had possession of it some months prior to the loss. A copy of the application, containing the false answers as written by the agent, was indorsed upon the back of the policy, but such indorsement was not referred to in the body of the policy. The trial court found that the plaintiff did not at any: time object to the answers as stated in the application, or request the defendant to correct the same. The evidence, however, is con-