AN INCIDENTAL GRIEVANCE
Jane Moffat, widow, was sore distressed.
“Without Tom,” she said, “I don’t know what I’ll do. Tom was a good man, but unlucky. There was better providers than Tom, but he was better than none.”
This apparent reflection on her late husband did not mean that Mrs. Moffat confined herself to the financial point of view, for she had been a true and devoted wife, but her present need was great and her present resources were nothing. Furthermore, Tom Moffat certainly had been either unlucky or incapable. Mrs. Moffat, out of her affection for him, chose to attribute their misfortunes to ill luck; another, less considerate, might have said that Tom lacked ability and stability; no one, however, could have said that he was neglectful or indifferent – he did the best he could, and his family always had all he could provide. Nevertheless, Tom Moffat had drifted from one thing to another, and his wife and two children had drifted with him. He had worked at many things, and in many places, and there had been times when he lacked work entirely. So he left Mrs. Moffat practically nothing when he died.
“The neighbors was good,” continued Mrs. Moffat, “an’ I’ve got some sewing to do. I was pretty good at that in my younger days, but the children don’t give me time to earn much, even if the pay was what it should be. I had to sell some furniture already, an’ I don’t know what I’ll do. We’ve been going from bad to worse.”
“Didn’t he have no insurance?” asked the sympathetic Mrs. Crimmins, whose husband was a member of one of the fraternal organizations.
“Not when he died,” answered Mrs. Moffat. “Didn’t I say he was unlucky? He had insurance when it didn’t mean anything but paying out money, but there ain’t any when the time comes for getting it back.”
“They can’t take your money an’ not give you nothing for it,” declared Mrs. Crimmins.
“Sure they can!” said Mrs. Moffat.
“I say they can’t,” insisted Mrs. Crimmins. “There can’t nobody do that, if you got the sense to fight. There was a lawyer once told my man so.”
“Well, Tom paid the money, an’ it ain’t come back to me, has it?” demanded Mrs. Moffat, as if that settled the question.
“You ain’t tried to get it, that’s why!” retorted Mrs. Crimmins. “You go see a lawyer. He’ll make ’em pay, an’ he won’t charge you a cent if he don’t get the money. Some might, but I’ll tell you one that won’t.”
Mrs. Moffat was not in a position to overlook even a slight chance to get any money, especially if it cost nothing to make the attempt. She knew less about insurance than Mrs. Crimmins, and Mrs. Crimmins had only wild, weird, second-hand notions. Still, Mrs. Crimmins talked confidently, and Mrs. Moffat finally took the address of the lawyer recommended to her. This, of course, was a mistake – it would have been better to go direct to the insurance company. But the impression prevails in some quarters that insurance companies are ready to take advantage of any technicality to escape the payment of claims, and that a lawyer’s services are necessary to compel them to pay anything that can possibly be questioned. Some lawyers, for their own purposes, encourage this idea. Isaac Hinse, to whom Mrs. Moffat went, was one of this class.
“You did well to come to me,” he said pompously, as soon as she had stated her errand. “What chance has a woman, with no knowledge of the law, against a great corporation that has big lawyers engaged for the sole purpose of bulldozing or fooling the ignorant? Fortunately, I know how to deal with them. Now, where is this policy?”
“Tore up,” answered Mrs. Moffat.
“What!” cried Hinse.
“Tom tore it up when he couldn’t pay any more on it. I ain’t looking for the whole thousand dollars, but only to get back what he paid in. Mrs. Crimmins said I could do that.”
Hinse leaned back in his chair and looked at the ceiling thoughtfully.
“Well,” he said at last, “that makes more trouble, of course. An insurance company can’t escape its obligations because the policy has been destroyed, but it makes it more difficult to prove the claim. Do you know what kind of policy it was?”
“How should I?” returned Mrs. Moffat. “I’m no lawyer nor no insurance man. I come to you to learn my rights.”
“Quite right, quite right,” conceded Hinse; “but I must know something of the circumstances. When was this policy taken out?”
“Fifteen or sixteen years ago,” answered Mrs. Moffat. “We was doing pretty well then. Tom’s aunt left him a bit of money, an’ Tom was workin’ steady an’ I got some money a little later. But Tom was always unlucky. He didn’t seem to hold on well, an’ we kept movin’ an’ movin’ an’ gettin’ harder up – ”
“And he finally let the policy lapse,” suggested Hinse.
“Lapse!” exclaimed Mrs. Moffat, as if she had made an important discovery unexpectedly. “That’s it; that’s what he said when he tore it up an’ threw it in the fire. I only knew he didn’t think it was good, but Mrs. Crimmins says they got to pay back what he paid them.”
“That depends on the policy and circumstances,” said Hinse in his most impressive way – and Hinse prided himself upon being impressive. “How long did he pay premiums?”
“Eight or ten years.”
“Ha!” exclaimed Hinse. “There is a chance, but it is a desperate chance – so desperate that I really can’t afford to take this on my usual contingent fee.”
“What’s that?” asked Mrs. Moffat.
“I mean,” explained Hinse, “that I’ll get the money for you if any one can, but I’ll have to charge five dollars in advance.”
Mrs. Moffat hesitated.
“I got it,” she said, “but it’s rent money.”
“There’s more than rent in this,” declared Hinse, “but why should I take all the risk? It is a hard case and will take a great deal of my time, but I know these people, and I think I can work it out of them. You happened to come to just the right man.”
Mrs. Moffat was sitting on the opposite side of the desk from Hinse, which she deemed fortunate at this critical moment.
“There ain’t any safe place to leave money at home,” she explained apologetically, “an’ a woman don’t have safe pockets like a man.”
She made a dive down behind the desk, there was a sound of moving skirts, and she straightened up with three bills in her hand – a five and two ones. She handed the five to Hinse, who promptly tucked it away in his vest pocket.
“I don’t know what I’ll do about the rent,” she sighed.
“Think of the insurance,” suggested Hinse, “and remember that you’ve got the best man cheap. I’ll see these insurance people to-day.”
Hinse was a large pompous man, who wore a long rusty frock coat, because he thought that kind of coat properly impressed his police-court clients. His speeches also were for his clients, rather than for the judge – he wanted to show them he was not afraid of the court. He talked loud and aggressively. His whole life being what is popularly termed a “bluff,” it naturally followed that he considered bluffing the main element of success.
That is where he made his mistake when he went to see Dave Murray about Mrs. Moffat’s claim. Murray was not in particularly good humor that day. A friend had been arguing to him that corporations are notoriously ungrateful for services rendered, and another friend had endeavored to demonstrate that life insurance companies had a way of forcing a man to the limit of his endurance, of squeezing all the life and energy out of him in a few years, and then dropping him.
The worst of it was that some of the cases cited Murray knew to be true: men were “forced” and then left to seek other avenues of employment when insurance had got the best that was in them. He had argued that it was the universal business rule of “the survival of the fittest”; that the man who had the ability to get near the top need have no fear, and that men who could stand the pace prospered wherever they might be in the great system. But an unexpected and rather harsh criticism from headquarters had given him a more pessimistic view of the situation: it could not be denied that comparatively few men grew old in the service. Then there was a gloomy outlook for a promotion he had expected, to add to his annoyance, and – well, Murray, the energetic and enthusiastic Murray, was momentarily dissatisfied. He was in no humor to be “bluffed” by a pompous shyster lawyer.
“I am representing Mrs. Jane Moffat,” announced Hinse.
“What about her?” asked Murray shortly.
“She has a claim against your company.”
“Policy?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s see it.”
“There will be time enough for that,” said Hinse in his most impressive tones, “when we have settled what is to be paid on it.” Hinse was so constituted morally that he could not possibly be frank and straightforward. “It is a policy for a thousand dollars on the life of her late husband, Thomas Moffat. He failed to pay some of the last premiums, but there is a value to it.”
“Is there?”
“There is. Will you look it up and see how the matter stands, or shall I take legal proceedings to force a settlement?”
“Better sue,” said Murray. “Good day.”
“You will regret this interview,” announced Hinse.
“I regret it already,” returned Murray. Then, his professional instinct overcoming his dislike of the man, he added: “If premiums have not been paid, the policy may have lapsed, or it may be non-forfeitable. I must see the policy and know the details. I never heard of Thomas Moffat that I recall. Give me the facts.”
“Ah,” said Hinse, settling himself comfortably in a chair, “I thought you would see the wisdom of being reasonable.”
“Reasonable!” exploded Murray. “Damn it! I’m having trouble enough being patient. Who was he, where did he live, and when did he die?”
There was something in the way this was said that led Hinse to change his tactics, and he partly explained the situation in a confidential way. Premiums had been paid on the policy for at least eight years, he said, but the widow had supposed that everything was forfeited when her husband failed to pay the later premiums: she knew nothing about cash surrender values or non-forfeitable clauses.
“She’ll do what I say,” he said significantly in conclusion. “She’ll compromise for any figure that I say is right.”
He waited for Murray to reach for this bait, but Murray was merely fighting an impulse to throw the man out of the office.
“Oh, she will!” said Murray at last. “Well, you’ll talk more frankly than you have, if you want to do business with me. Where’s the proof of death and the proof of identity? Where’s the policy?”
Hinse ignored the last question. He wished to find out certain things about that policy himself before he admitted that it had been destroyed, and he thought he was handling the matter with consummate skill.
“There will be no trouble about the proof of death,” he said. “In fact, I have that with me. But Moffat and his family moved many times during the years that have elapsed since he stopped paying premiums, living in two or three different cities, and they were not always known to their neighbors.”
“I thought so,” remarked Murray sarcastically. “Somebody died, and you want me to take it on faith that he was the Thomas Moffat who once was insured in this company. Although I haven’t looked it up, I have no doubt that a Thomas Moffat did take out a policy, for I don’t believe even you would have the nerve to come to me without at least that much foundation for your claim. Perhaps it was the same Thomas Moffat who died; perhaps it was a man who was merely given that name in the certificate of death. Perhaps he left a widow; perhaps you are representing that widow, but perhaps you are representing a woman who merely claims to be that widow. She has moved so often that she can’t produce any satisfactory evidence of her identity. Doesn’t it strike you that you are telling a rather fishy story? Doesn’t it occur to you that you ought to have ingenuity enough to concoct something more plausible?”
“This insult, sir – ” Hinse shifted again to his pompous manner, but Murray interrupted him.
“Insult!” exclaimed Murray. “That wasn’t an insult, but I’ll give you one. I think you’re a tricky scoundrel. You have virtually offered to sell out your alleged client. I think you’re a swindler. I don’t believe you have or can produce any such policy.”
“The loss of a policy, sir – ”
“I knew it!” broke in Murray. “Policy lost, of course! In other words, your client hasn’t a policy and never did have one. She’s an impostor! You or she learned that there had been such a man and such a policy, and you thought there was a chance to get some money. You must think insurance companies are easy.”
“I shall take this matter to court!” declared Hinse.
“Do!” advised Murray. “Take it anywhere, so long as you take it out of this office.”
“You shall hear from me again!” said Hinse at the door.
“I’d rather hear from you than see you,” retorted Murray. “You annoy me.”
Nevertheless, when Hinse had departed, Murray had the matter looked up, and found that such a policy actually had been issued, that it was non-forfeitable after three years, and that about four hundred dollars was due on it as a result of the premiums that had been paid. Murray was eminently a just man – he wished to take unfair advantage of no one. There might be merit in the claim advanced, and some woman, entitled to the money, might be in great want. Still, it was not his business to seek for ways of disbursing the company’s funds. He reported the matter to the home office, and was advised to give it no further attention unless suit actually was brought. Then it should be fought. Insurance companies do not like lawsuits, but they like still less to pay out money when there is doubt as to the justice of a claim. When one of them goes into court, however, it fights bitterly. Hinse knew this, and he had not the slightest intention of bringing suit.
If Mrs. Moffat had had any more money, so that there would have been a chance to exact further fees, he might have sued for the mere sake of getting the fees, but she could not even advance court costs. So Murray waited in vain for the threatened suit, but the possibility of it kept the case in his mind. The claim probably was fraudulent, but, if not, the woman unquestionably was poor and unfortunate: the very fact that she had taken the case to such a shyster as Hinse was proof of that. Somehow, the well-to-do people do not get into the hands of shysters. Murray believed it was a fraud, but he always came back to the possibility of being mistaken in this. And injustice – the injustice of passivity as well as of activity – was abhorrent to him.
The day Murray ran across a newspaper item to the effect that a Mrs. Thomas Moffat had been evicted for the non-payment of rent, he disobeyed the instructions from the home office and looked her up. In theory it was all right to wait for a beneficiary to bring in the necessary proofs; in practice it was horrible to think of taking advantage of the ignorance or helplessness of a woman in trouble.
Murray found Mrs. Moffat and her two children in a little back room near the somewhat larger apartment from which she had just been evicted. She was trying to sew and care for the children at the same time. It was evident, however, that she had long since overtaxed her strength and was near the point of physical collapse.
“The neighbors has been good to me,” she explained, “but they got their own troubles an’ they can’t do much.”
Murray had primed himself with such facts as to Thomas Moffat as the books of the company and the old insurance application gave, and, after explaining his errand, he asked when and where Thomas Moffat was born. The weary woman, too long inured to disappointment to be really hopeful now, brought out a little old Bible and showed him the entries relating to birth and marriage. They corresponded with the dates he had. Murray took up the little Bible reverently, and he then and there decided that this woman was the widow of the Thomas Moffat who had been insured in his company. Even her maiden name, as given in the Bible, corresponded with the name he had taken from the books. Nevertheless, he questioned her closely on all the other details that he could verify. She gave the address at which they were living when the policy was taken out, and also told of the various changes of residence during the time that the premiums were being paid.
“He kep’ the big paper with the seals on it for ‘most three years after he quit paying,” she said. “Then he tore it up an’ burned it. He said it wasn’t no more use, for he’d lost it all when he quit paying. It seemed mighty hard, but I thought he knew.”
“There isn’t even a scrap of it left?” queried Murray.
“No, sir. He burned the scraps. I saw him do it.”
“That’s unfortunate,” said Murray. “If there was barely enough to identify the policy it would help. It would be annoying to have it turn up after we had settled the matter, for the custom is to surrender the policy to the company when the payment is made.”
“You needn’t to worry over that,” Mrs. Moffat assured him anxiously. “It was burned to the very last piece. I saw it myself.”
“I don’t doubt it,” returned Murray. “Have you your marriage certificate?”
“Have I!” exclaimed Mrs. Moffat in surprise. “You didn’t never know an honest married woman who would lose that, did you? A man don’t think much of it, but a woman does. It’s the proof she’s respectable.”
Mrs. Moffat produced the certificate, but Murray merely glanced at the names.
“I think you may rely on getting the money, Mrs. Moffat,” he said. “It isn’t much, but – ”
“I got a chance to start a little school store if I had a bit of money,” she interrupted eagerly. “I don’t need only two hundred or two hundred and fifty, an’ it’s better than sewing.”
“I am so confident that this is all right,” said Murray, ignoring the interruption, “that I am going to advance you a little money now. I imagine you need it.”
“Indeed I do!” exclaimed the grateful and now hopeful woman. “The lawyer got most of the rent money.”
“Damn the lawyer!” ejaculated Murray. “If he hears that you’ve got anything he’ll probably put in another claim, but you’re not to pay him a cent. Do you understand that? Send him to me. I’ll settle with him.”
“Yes, sir,” returned Mrs. Moffat meekly. “He helped me – ”
“Helped you! He did more to hurt you than any other ten men could have done. He ought to be made to pay damages.”
Then Murray laughed at his own heat and gave Mrs. Moffat a twenty-dollar bill.
“When we get the matter settled,” he said, “you can repay this.”
“Indeed I will!”
Murray noted that there were tears in her eyes, and, disliking a scene of any description, he picked up his hat and hastily withdrew.
The matter, however, was not settled as easily as he expected. He stated frankly what he had done, and the officials at headquarters seemed to think he had taken unnecessary pains to make trouble. It was not that they objected to paying any just claim against the company, but they held that he had put life into a slumbering claim that was at least open to suspicion. Such evidence as she produced might have fallen into the hands of an impostor, and there was a considerable interval during which the connection between the real beneficiary and the present claimant was lost, the only explanation being that they had made frequent changes of residence and had been among strangers. In brief, the company did not consider the claims satisfactorily established and criticized the whole affair as being irregular.
Murray was disappointed and annoyed. He was entirely satisfied in his own mind, and he resented the criticism. Nevertheless, he sought for further evidence, and Mrs. Moffat was finally able to supply it in the shape of a receipt for the last premium paid. This, it seemed, had not been destroyed with the policy. Mrs. Moffat had discovered it among some old papers. This Murray also reported.
“We are not satisfied with the evidence produced,” was the reply that came back.
“I am satisfied,” was Murray’s answer, as he recalled the woman’s tears of gratitude, “and I have settled the claim and paid the money. Is my action to be upheld or is my resignation desired?”
There was a long interval of silence on the part of the officials at headquarters. This Murray understood to be an evidence of their displeasure. Having thus made their displeasure very apparent, the report was finally returned with the single word, “Approved,” written across it.
“Nevertheless,” mused Murray, “I fear I am not long for this business – at least with this company. Either I am becoming both headstrong and sensitive or else my superiors are becoming inconsiderate and dissatisfied.”
That evening he took a long street-car ride, at the end of which he entered a little store opposite one of the big public schools. He wanted to see the result of his work.
When he reappeared, a little woman followed him to the door, and there was a quaver in her voice as she said, “You’ve been so good to us, Mr. Murray, and we’re so happy.”
“Well,” returned Murray with a smile, “I’m happy myself. And,” he added, as he was returning home, “it’s worth all that it ever can cost me.”