Meyer v. Supreme Lodge
| Decision Date | 30 April 1920 |
| Docket Number | 20849 |
| Citation | 177 N.W. 828,104 Neb. 505 |
| Parties | GEORGE O. MEYER, APPELLANT, v. SUPREME LODGE, KNIGHTS OF PYTHIAS, APPELLEE |
| Court | Nebraska Supreme Court |
APPEAL from the district court for Otoe county: JAMES T. BEGLEY JUDGE. Reversed.
REVERSED.
Livingston & Heinke and A. S. Churchill, for appellant.
W. J Connell, contra.
On December 15, 1916, plaintiff sued in the district court for Otoe county to recover $ 2,000 as beneficiary of a fraternal insurance policy issued to his father by defendant. A jury was waived, and the case tried to the court. Defendant prevailed, and plaintiff appealed.
The policy sued on bears date May 11, 1910, and is a renewal of a policy issued to the insured January 1, 1885, when he was 51 years of age. From the latter date until the new and advanced rates became effective, which was about January 1, 1911, the insured paid all dues assessed under the old rates against members of "class four" to which he belonged. Subsequent payments at the old rates were tendered by or in behalf of the insured that plaintiff alleges were wrongfully refused. He argues that the money, so tendered, in effect kept the insured in good standing until his death April 11, 1916.
In August, 1910, the supreme lodge of the defendant society adopted a by-law that increased the rates in its insurance department above the rates formerly paid by members of "class four," raising the dues on $ 2,000 policies from $ 5.70 a month to $ 26.30 a month. The insured refused to pay the increased rate on the ground, among others, that the defendant society did not have and was not working under a representative form of government when the rates were increased, and that the society was therefore without authority to increase its rates so as to affect Nebraska members whose policies were taken out in Nebraska under the former rate: Section 1, ch. 47, Laws 1897, was in force when the increased rates were adopted. The act provided:
It is pointed out in Holt v. Supreme Lodge, Knights of Pythias, 235 F. 885, that the present charter of defendant (Act June 29, 1894, 28 U.S. St. at Large, ch. 119, sec. 4, p. 97) authorizes amendments at will, provided they do not conflict with federal or state laws. Whether the defendant has the right in this state, under the act of 1897, to enforce the provisions of the amended by-law that was adopted in August, 1910, and that raised the rates in question, seems to be the decisive point in the case.
The laws of the order provide generally that the insurance department shall be governed by the supreme lodge. Defendant offered in evidence certain "amendments to the supreme statutes" relating to and governing the insurance department, which were enacted and adopted at the convention of the supreme lodge held at Milwaukee in August, 1910. Among other amendments, section 479 was adopted, under which the increased rates were imposed that are complained of. The amendment follows:
The supreme constitution of the order provides: The officers of the supreme lodge are eight in number, and as designated in the constitution they are: "The supreme chancellor, the supreme vice chancellor, the supreme prelate, the supreme keeper of records and seals, the supreme master of the exchequer, the supreme master of arms, the supreme inner guard and the supreme outer guard."
It seems to us that, under section 1, ch. 47, Laws 1897 defendant cannot enforce section 479 of its "supreme statutes" in the present case, because that section expressly provides that the right to increase the schedule of rates in the fourth and fifth classes is reserved to the supreme lodge, a body that by the supreme constitution appears to be composed, not only of elected delegates, but in part of "all past supreme chancellors" and some members that are appointive and eight supreme lodge officers. How many past supreme chancellors may sit as voting members of the supreme...
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