Titan Insurance Co v. McKinley Hyten

Summary

The Court held that an insurer may use traditional legal and equitable remedies to avoid liability under an insurance policy obtained through fraud, even when the fraud was easily ascertainable and the claimant is an injured third party. It rejected the rule imposing an insurer duty to investigate an applicant's representations, clarified that the statutory bar on fraud defenses applies only to certified proof-of-financial-responsibility policies, and remanded for determination of whether actionable fraud was established. Justice Hathaway, dissenting, would have retained the easily ascertainable rule and affirmed the Court of Appeals.