Nowak v. City of New York Insurance

The opinion of the court was delivered by

Hutchison, J.:

The question here involved is the validity of a fire insurance policy containing the usual provision that it shall be void if the personal property insured shall be encumbered by a chattel mortgage or the fact of its being so encumbered be concealed from the insurance company, when no inquiry was made by the insurer as to encumbrances and no misrepresentations were made by the insured.

The plaintiff was a tenant owning an undivided two-thirds interest in 147 acres off growing wheat on July 7, 1931, and the remaining one-third interest…