United States Supreme Court Cases & Opinions

U.S. Supreme Court

Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection & Ins. Co. v. Harrison, 301 U.S. 459 (1937)

Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection & Insurance Co. v. Harrison

No. 355

Argued February 2, 1937

Decided May 24, 1937

301 U.S. 459

Syllabus

A statutory discrimination between the mutual companies and the stock companies which write fire, casualty, etc., insurance in the State, forbidding stock companies to act through agents who are their salaried employees but permitting this to mutual companies, is repugnant to the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. P. 301 U. S. 463.

Georgia Ls., 1935, Act of Mar. 28, 1935, § 1, held unconstitutional. The discrimination has no reasonable relation to the difference between the two classes of companies. It is arbitrary.

183 Ga. 1, 187 S.E. 648, reversed.

Appeal from a judgment which reversed a decision of a trial court directing that a writ of mandamus issue requiring

Page 301 U. S. 460

the above-named Insurance Commissioner to license one of the appellants as general agent of the other, the Insurance Company.