Bolin v. Sovereign Camp. W. O. W.
| Citation | 98 S.W.2d 681,339 Mo. 618 |
| Parties | William F. Bolin et al. v. The Sovereign Camp of the Woodmen of the World, a Corporation, Appellant |
| Decision Date | 12 November 1936 |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court of Missouri |
Appeal from Nodaway Circuit Court.
Transferred to the Kansas City Court of Appeals.
Wright & Ford for appellant.
Livengood & Weightman, J. S. Shinabargar and A. F. Harvey for respondents.
Harding Murphy & Tucker amicus curiae.
This is an action on a benefit certificate issued by the defendant to Pleasant Bolin and made payable on his death to his wife, in the sum of $ 1000, and for a monument to be erected at his grave. Bolin died on or about July 18, 1933, leaving the plaintiffs as his children and descendants and beneficiaries, his wife having predeceased him a few weeks and no other beneficiaries having been designated in the certificate. The certificate contains a provision that it was incontestable after one year from the date thereof on the ground of irregularities, provided the member to whom it was issued has complied with all its requirements, and contains this provision on its face, "payments to cease after twenty years." The payments-to-cease provision was ostensibly authorized by a then by-law of the defendant. It was stated that Bolin paid the monthly installments as required by the constitution, laws and by-laws of the order up to and including the month of June, 1916, more than twenty years, and made no further payments thereafter. Defendant claimed the certificate was forfeited on account of failure to pay subsequent dues and assessments.
In the trial before the court the finding and judgment went for plaintiffs and the defendant appealed to this court. Preliminarily the plaintiffs raise the question of our jurisdiction of the appeal.
It is manifest that "the amount in dispute" does not furnish sufficient basis for our jurisdiction. As will appear the defendant (appellant here) relies on the full faith and credit clause of the Federal Constitution as affording the basis of this court's jurisdiction. [U.S. Const., Art. IV, Sec. 1.] Briefly stated, appellant's position in this regard is predicated upon (1) the admitted fact that appellant was and is a Nebraska corporation, chartered and domiciled in that state (the statutes of that state appertaining were pleaded in haec verba in appellant's answer); (2) the contract in suit was a Nebraska contract and governed by the laws of that state; (3) the Supreme Court of Nebraska in the case of Trapp v. Sovereign Camp of the Woodmen of the World, 102 Neb. 562, 168 N.W. 191, involving a similar contention to this one, rendered a final decision and judgment that such contract was null and void because ultra vires of the corporation.
The essence of respondents' position is that, the contract was and is a Missouri contract, governed by the laws of Missouri; and that by reason of full performance by Bolin in his lifetime of each and every obligation resting upon him, the appellant is estopped to plead or maintain that the contract was ultra vires of the corporation.
It thus appears that the decisive issue upon which all others were dependent in the instant case was the question of lex loci contractus. The ultimate facts on which this issue depended were by the respective parties adequately pleaded to raise such issue, and the printed record discloses ample substantial evidence pertaining to such issue. The opinion and record of the Trapp case, supra, was introduced in evidence. It discloses that estoppel of the corporation there to plead and make a defense of ultra vires was not an issue and was not determined in that case. Also, the case did not purport to be a class suit, though that may be of no importance to the present discussion. In the case at bar there was evidence tending to show that Bolin on June 5 1896, then a resident citizen of Arkoe, Nodaway County, Missouri, entered said association, became a member of said association's subordinate and local Camp at Arkoe, and the benefit certificate herein sued upon was then...
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...of jurors. It was held that no such question was raised and the cause was transferred to the Court of Appeals. The Early case and the Bolin case transferred to the Court of Appeals on the ground that only the question of the locus contractus was involved. In Esmar v. Haeussler et al., 341 M......
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