Benes v. Supreme Lodge Knights & Ladies of Honor

• Decision Date: 17 December 1907
• Citation: 83 N.E. 127,231 Ill. 134
• Parties: BENES v. SUPREME LODGE KNIGHTS AND LADIES OF HONOR.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

231 Ill. 134

83 N.E. 127

BENES

v.SUPREME LODGE KNIGHTS AND LADIES OF HONOR.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Dec. 17, 1907.

Error to Appellate Court, First District, on Appeal from Superior Court, Cook County; Axel Chytraus, Judge.

Action by Johanna Benes against the Supreme Lodge Knights and Ladies of Honor. From a judgment of the Appellate Court for the First district, reversing a judgment for plaintiff, she brings error. Affirmed.Charles D. Lusk (De Witt C. Jones, of counsel), for plaintiff in error.

Ashcraft & Ashcraft (Edwin M. Ashcraft, of counsel), for defendant in error.

Johanna Benes, plaintiff in error, brought suit in assumpsit in the superior court of Cook county, to the January term, 1905, against the Supreme Lodge Knights and Ladies of Honor, a corporation, defendant in error, to recover an amount alleged to be due her upon a benefit certificate issued by said corporation. To the third replication to the plea defendant interposed a general and special demurrer, which was overruled by the court. Leave was then obtained by plaintiff to withdraw the first and second replications, and defendant having elected to abide its demurrer, judgment was rendered against it for the sum of $1,046.76. From the judgment of the superior court defendant prayed an appeal to the Appellate Court for the First District, and upon a hearing in that court the judgment was reversed, and the cause remanded. Thereafter, upon the motion of plaintiff, the judgment of the Appellate Court was vacated. Plaintiff then admitted of record in the Appellate Court that she could interpose no facts to the plea other than those set up by the third replication, and moved that court to enter a final judgment in the cause upon said demurrer. Thereupon the Appellate Court, being of the opinion that the facts stated by the third replication were not, in law, an answer to the plea, reversed the judgment of the superior court, and rendered final judgment in the cause in favor of the defendant and against the plaintiff, and she brings the record to this court by writ of error.

The first count of the declaration alleges that defendant was and is a corporation organized under the laws of the state of Indiana, doing business in the state of Illinois as a fraternal benefit society, and as such, on November 25, 1904, executed and delivered a benefit certificate to one John Benes, the husband of plaintiff, who was then a member of Lodge Svatopluk No. 1,108, one of the lodges of said defendant; that it was provided in said certificate that upon the condition that the statements made by said John Benes in his application for membership and his answers to questions in his statement to the medical examiner were true, and on condition that said Benes should strictly comply with all laws, rules, and requirements relating to the relief fund, together with the laws in general of the Knights and Ladies of Honor then in force or that should thereafter be enacted by said order, the said defendant undertook and promised to pay the wife of said Benes $1,000 upon his death; that said Benes departed this life on May 28, 1905, and that the statements made by him in his application for membership and the answers to questions in his statement to the medical examiner were true, and that while a participant in the relief fund he complied with all laws, rules, and requirements relating to said fund, together with all laws in general of the Knights and Ladies of Honor then in force or thereafter enacted by said order; that defendant, although often requested, has not paid to plaintiff the sum of $1,000. In the second count, which is substantially the same as the first, the benefit certificate is set out.

The only plea filed avers that defendant was on November 25, 1904, and for many years prior thereto, and still is, a fraternal mutual benefit society organized for the purpose of furnishing pecuniary benefits to beneficiaries of deceased members; that at the time of the issuing of said supposed benefit certificate, and for many years prior thereto and from thence hitherto, the defendant association has been governed and regulated by laws, rules, and regulations adopted by its supreme lodge; that during the month of September, 1903, and before the issuing or delivering of said supposed benefit certificate, the said supreme lodge, at its September session, 1903, among other laws, rules, and regulations then adopted for the government of defendant and for the regulation of the collection and disbursement of its relief fund and the payment of benefit certificates, enacted a law which is substantially as follows: ‘If any member of the order, whose relief fund certificate bears date after this section goes into effect, shall, within five years after becoming a member, die by his or her own hand, whether at the time of the act sane or insane, the relief fund certificate of such member shall become null and void,...