# Key Western Life Insurance v. State Board of Insurance

> Texas Supreme Court · October 3, 1961 · 163 Tex. 11

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9668652

## Case

- **Full name:** Key Western Life Insurance Company, Appellant v. State Board of Insurance Et Al, Appellees
- **Court:** Texas Supreme Court
- **Decided:** October 3, 1961
- **Citations:** 163 Tex. 11; 5 Tex. Sup. Ct. J. 41; 350 S.W.2d 839; 1961 Tex. LEXIS 605
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by Griffin
- **Judges:** Greenhill, Griffin, Smith, Steakley
- **Cited by:** 152 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9668652

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- concluding Legislature may delegate authority to the former State Board of Insurance under the statute’s “encourages misrepresentation” provision; the “standards the Supreme Court (of the United States) has held adequate include ‘just and reasonable,’ ‘public interest,’ ‘unrea…
- recognizing the importance of a separation of powers and holding that the State Board of Insurance was acting in a judicial capacity when it acted to approve a particular policy form
- holding that, on judicial review of an agency’s decision, the trial court is “without authority to substitute a nonstatutory standard for that prescribed by the statute”
- holding that trial de novo in administrative context requires retrial "as if no trial whatever has been had in the court below’’
- stating that, if possible, court must construe statute to avoid repugnancy to constitution

## Opinion text

MR. JUSTICE GRIFFIN
dissenting.
I cannot agree with the majority opinion and I therefore respectfully dissent.
I dissent from the holding that the matter of the content and form of insurance policy provisions can be tried de novo. The content and form of insurance policies most certainly are administrative matters and not judicial matters. In the first instance, to permit the courts to write insurance policies would, in my opinion, lead to interminable confusion and great lack of uniformity. Such procedure would lead to the approval of one form of policy for one company, and approval of another and different form for another company.
Opinion delivered October 3, 1961.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9668652. Public record. Not legal advice.