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the condemnation of courts, whenever it is relied upon to work out a fraud, as it is in this case. The policy might as well say that the president of the company should be deemed the agent of the assured. . Such a clause is no part of a contract. It is an attempt to reverse the law of agency, and to declare that a party is not bound by his agent's acts. Whether one is an agent of another is a question of mixed law and fact, depending on the authority given expressly or impliedly. When a contract is, in fact, made through the agent of a party, the acts of that agent in that respect are binding on his principal."

In Nassauer v. Susquehanna Ins. Co., 109 Penn. St. 507, 509, under a by-law providing that "in all cases the person forwarding applications shall be deemed the agent of the applicant," it was held, under the circumstances of the case, that the agent of the company soliciting insurance was not the agent of the applicant, and that such by-law was not binding upon him. Although the insured is supposed to know at his peril the conditions of the policy, that will not bind him to a provision which is not true, and one which the company had no right to insert therein. "We do not assent," said the court, "to the proposition that the offer" (that the agent made his own valuation of the property)" was incompetent, because Laubach was the agent of the assured in filling up the application and forwarding it to the company. He was not the agent of the assured. The latter had not employed him for any purpose. He was the agent of the defendant company, and as such called upon the assured and solicited a policy, and having obtained his consent, proceeded to fill up the application for him to sign. As to all these preliminary matters the person soliciting the insurance is the agent of the company." The court, speaking of the agency clause, observed: "This court, in the case above cited, Columbia Ins. Co. v. Cooper, 50 Penn. St. 331, characterized a somewhat similar provision as a 'cunning condition.' The court might have gone further and designated it as a dishonest condition. It was the assertion of a falsehood, and an attempt to put that falsehood into the mouth of the assured. It formed no part of the contract of insurance. That contract consists of the application and the policy issued in pursuance thereof. In point of

Opinion of the Court.

fact the assured does not see the policy until after it is executed and delivered to him. In many instances it is laid away by him and never read, especially as to the elaborate conditions in fine print. Grant that it is his duty to read it, his neglect to do so can bind him only for what the company had a right to insert therein. He was not bound to suppose that the company would falsely assert, either by direct language in the policy or by reference to a by-law, that a man was his agent who had never been his agent, but who was on the contrary the agent of the company. Notwithstanding this was a mutual company, the assured did not become a member thereof until after the insurance was effected. Hence a by-law of the company of which he had no knowledge, and by which he was bound, could not affect him in matters occurring before the granting of the policy. And even a by-law of a mutual company which declares that black is white does not necessarily make it so." Similar cases are those of Eilenberger v. Protective Ins. Co., 89 Penn. St. 464; Susquehanna &c., Ins. Co. v. Cusick, 109 Penn. St. 157; and Kister v. Lebanon Ins. Co., 128 Penn. St. 553.

The case of Lycoming &c., Ins. Co. v. Ward, 90 Illinois, 545, resembles the case under consideration. In that case it was held that, where the assured contracts with one as the agent of the insurer, believing him to be such, and does not employ such supposed agent to act for him in obtaining insurance, such person has no power to act for or bind the insured, though the policy may provide that the person procuring the insurance shall be deemed the agent of the insured, and not of the company. Plaintiff paid the premium to the person with whom she contracted for the insurance, and of whom she obtained the policy. It was held that such person, assuming to be the agent of the company, the payment was binding upon the company, whether he paid the money over or not. In that case the person to whom the money was paid was not in reality an agent of the company, although plaintiff believed him to be such, but only a street insurance broker, who represented himself to be the agent of the company. Said the court: "Under such circumstances who should bear the loss arising from the fraud committed by the street broker? Should it fall upon the plaintiff, who was

Opinion of the Court.

an innocent party in the transaction, or should it fall upon the company, who alone enabled Puschman to successfully consummate the contract of insurance by placing in his hands the policy for delivery? The street broker was not the agent of the plaintiff for any purpose. If the evidence be true, he had no authority to act for her or bind her in any manner whatever by what he might do in the premises, and while he may not have been, in fact, the agent of the company, still the company, by placing the policy in the hands of the street broker for delivery, is estopped from claiming that the payment made to him upon delivery of the policy is not binding upon the company."

In Indiana it is also held that a recital in the policy that the broker obtaining an insurance is the agent of the insured is not conclusive upon that subject.. Indiana Ins. Co. v. Hartwell, 100 Indiana, 566. In North British &c., Ins. Co. v. Crutchfield, 108 Indiana, 518, the agency clause was held to be absolutely void as applied to a local agent, upon whose counter signature the validity of the policy, by its terms, was made to depend.

In Boetcher v. Hawkeye Ins. Co., 47 Iowa, 253, it was held that, if the assured had the right to believe the soliciting agent was the agent of the company, the insertion of a clause in the policy providing that he was the agent of the assured constituted a fraud upon the latter, of which the company could not take advantage.

Speaking of the agency clause in Continental Ins. Co. v. Pearce, 39 Kansas, 396, 401, it is said: "This is but a form of words to attempt to create on paper an agency, which in fact never existed. It is an attempt of the company, not to restrict the powers of its own agent, but an effort to do away with that relation altogether by mere words, and to make him in the same manner the agent of the assured, when, in fact, such relation never existed. We do not believe the entire nature and order of this well established relation can be so completely subverted by this ingenious device of words. The real fact, as it existed, cannot be hidden in this manner; much less can it be destroyed and something that did not in reality exist be placed in its stead. The substance is superior to the mere drapery of words with which one party wishes to bring into existence and clothe an

Opinion of the Court.

unreal authority." See also Kausal v. Minnesota &c., Ins. Asso., 31 Minnesota, 17, in which the act of an insurance agent in making out an incorrect application was held chargeable to the insurer, and not to the insured, notwithstanding the insertion of an agency clause in the policy.

In Planters' &c., Ins. Co. v. Myers, 55 Mississippi, 479, 498, 506, an agency clause in a policy of insurance was held to be void, as involving a legal contradiction. The applicant made truthful answers to certain interrogatories propounded by the agent, who stated certain things that were not true. They were held not to be binding upon the insured. Speaking of the agency clause, it is said: "The verbiage of this condition is not candid; it seems to have been used with studied design to obscure the real purpose. It is a snare, set in an obscure place, well calculated to escape notice. It is not written or printed on the face of the policy. It is not so much as alluded to in the application; nor is the agent in his printed instructions enjoined to inform those with whom he treats of it. . . . Its inevitable effect is to greatly weaken the indemnity on which the assured relied. It is inconsistent with the acts and conduct of the insurance companies in sending abroad all over the land their agents and representatives to canvass for risks. It is an effort by covenant to get the benefits and profits which these agents bring them, and at the same time repudiate the relation they sustain to them; and to set up that relationship with the assured, and that, too, without their knowledge and consent. It is not a limitation or restriction of power, but the dissolution of the relationship with themselves and the establishment of it between other parties."

The case of Schunck v. Gegenseitiger Wittwen und Waisen Fond, 44 Wisconsin, 369, is almost precisely like the instant case. The constitution of the defendant corporation, whose governing body or directory was elected by the several "groves," (corresponding to the sections in this case,) of the United Ancient Order of Druids, declared that every member whose assessment was not paid by his grove to the directory within thirty days after demand made, forfeited his claim to have a certain sum in the nature of life insurance paid to his widow, or heirs,

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after his death. It was held that, in view of all the provisions of such constitution, the benevolent object of the corporation, and the fact that the several groves are, at least, as much its agents to collect and pay over the dues of their members, as they are agents of the latter, in case of a member whose dues have been fully paid to his grove at the time of his death, the amount of insurance might be recovered, notwithstanding a default of the grove in paying over such dues to the defendant.

The agency clause was also once before this court in the case of Grace v. American Central Ins. Co., 109 U. S. 278, in which a clause in the policy that the person procuring the insurance to be taken should be deemed the agent of the assured and not of the company, was held to import nothing more than that the person obtaining the insurance was to be deemed the agent of the insured in the matters immediately connected with the procurement of the policy, and that where his employment did not extend beyond the procurement of the insurance, his agency ceased upon the execution of the policy, and subsequent notice to him of its termination by the company was not notice to the insured.

In the following cases the officers of the subordinate lodge, or conclave, were treated as the agents of the Supreme Conclave in the matter of granting extensions of time for the payment of assessments: Whiteside v. Supreme Conclave, 82 Fed. Rep. 275; Knights of Pythias v. Bridges, 39 S. W. Rep. (Tex.) 333.

In the case under consideration it may be immaterial, except as bearing upon the equities of the case, that the agency clause was introduced into the general laws of the order in January, 1894, eleven years after the first certificate was issued to the assured, and nearly nine years after the certificate was issued upon which suit was brought. There is no evidence that it was ever called to Withers' attention, or that he had actual knowledge of it. If he were bound at all, it could only be by the stipulation in his original application, and by the terms of his certificate that "he would be bound by the rules and regulations of the order, now in force or that may hereafter be enacted." All that is required of him is a full compliance with such laws, and there is not the slightest evidence that he failed