Joiners Of America v. Mclain.

• Decision Date: 04 April 1946
• Docket Number: No. 343.,343.
• Parties: UNITED BROTHERHOOD OF CARPENTERS AND JOINERS OF AMERICA v. McLAIN.
• Court: D.C. Court of Appeals

46 A.2d 373

UNITED BROTHERHOOD OF CARPENTERS AND JOINERS OF AMERICA

v.McLAIN.

No. 343.

Municipal Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

April 4, 1946.

Appeal from the Municipal Court for the District of Columbia, Civil Division.

Action to recover funeral donation or benefit of $300 by Stanley V. McLain against the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, an association. From a judgment for the plaintiff, the defendant appeals.

Reversed.

James A. Glenn, of Washington, D. C. (Joseph A. Padway, of Washington, D. C., on the brief), for appellant.

Maurice Friedman, of Washington, D. C., for appellee.

Before CAYTON, Chief Judge, and HOOD, Associate Judge.

HOOD, Associate Judge.

Earl McLain was a member of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, a labor union, and after his death action was brought by his son to recover from the Brotherhood a funeral donation or benefit of $300. From a judgment against the Brotherhood, it has appealed.

It is conceded by the Brotherhood that the amount claimed is payable, unless the right to the donation was lost by decedent's failure to pay his monthly dues within the time fixed therefor by the Constitution and Laws of the Brotherhood.

The decedent did not pay his monthly dues of $2 during the months of April, May and June of 1944. On July 11, 1944, he paid his dues for July and the three preceding months. He died on July 27, 1944. The question presented is whether he or his family was entitled to a funeral donation at the time of his death. The answer to the question depends upon the following sections of the Constitution and Laws:

Section 44-B. ‘Monthly dues shall be charged on the books on the first of each month, but a member does not fall in arrears until the end of the month in which he owes a sum equal to three months' dues.'

Section 45-A. ‘When a member owes a sum equal to three months' dues, he is not in good standing and is thereby suspended from all donations and will not again be entitled to donations until three months from the date he has paid said arrearages, which payment must include the payment of dues for the months in which said payment is made. A member in arrears must square all arrearages in full within one year or stand suspended.'

Section 49-B. ‘A beneficial member will be entitled to the donations as prescribed in the Constitution and Laws of the United Brotherhood; provided, he is over one year a contributing or financial member in good standing, and when three months in arrears he shall be debarred from all donations until three months after all arrearages are paid in full, including the current month.'

Section 44-B, under the heading ‘Finances and Dues,’ provides that monthly dues are chargeable on the first of the month, i. e., they are set up as accounts receivable at the beginning of the month. The member has the entire month in which to pay his dues, but the dues are nevertheless ‘owed’ from the first of the month. One may owe a debt without being bound to make immediate payment. McDuffie v. Lynchburg Shoe Co., 178 Ala. 268, 59 So. 567; United States v. State Bank, 6 Pet. 29, 8 L.Ed. 308. The member would not be delinquent, i.e., his dues would not be past due, until the first of the following month; but his dues would be owing throughout the month and would be due and payable not later than midnight of the last day of the current month.

The distinction between owing, payable and past due appears in ordinary commercial transactions. One who borrows money or buys goods immediately owes the sum borrowed or the price of the goods, but the debt is not payable until the day arrives which has been agreed upon as the date for payment. If not paid on that date the debt is overdue or past due.

From what has been said it follows that the decedent owed dues for three months (April, May and June) on the first day of June, and at the end of June (midnight of June 30 or the first day of July) he was in arrears.

The...