Mo-Kan Teamsters Health and Welfare Fund v. Clark, MO-KAN

• Decision Date: 11 December 1990
• Docket Number: No. WD,MO-KAN,WD
• Citation: 803 S.W.2d 61
• Parties: TEAMSTERS HEALTH AND WELFARE FUND, a Trust Fund, et al., Plaintiff, v. Roger L. CLARK, Appellant, Mary L. Clark, Respondent. 42653.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

Page 61

803 S.W.2d 61

MO-KAN TEAMSTERS HEALTH AND WELFARE FUND, a Trust Fund, et al., Plaintiff, v. Roger L. CLARK, Appellant Mary L. Clark, Respondent.

No. WD 42653.

Missouri Court of Appeals Western District.

Dec. 11, 1990.

Motion for Rehearing and/or Transfer to Supreme Court

Denied Jan. 29, 1991.

Application to Transfer Denied March 5, 1991.

Jack A. Lewis, North Kansas City, and Bruce B. Brown, Kearney, for appellant.

Betsy Ann T. Stewart and W. Stephen Nixon, Independence, for respondent.

Mo-Kan Teamsters Health and Welfare Fund, A Trust Fund, et al., pro se.

Before KENNEDY, P.J., and SHANGLER and GAITAN, JJ.

SHANGLER, Judge.

The plaintiffs Mo-Kan Teamsters Health & Welfare Fund, a Trust Fund, and the individual Trustees, brought this action for interpleader to determine the rightful beneficiary of a death benefit. The Trust Fund provides a death benefit of $15,000, with an additional benefit of $7500 for death by accident, to an eligible participant and employee of the plan. James Dean Clark, an employee and eligible participant of the plan, died in an automobile accident on May 25, 1985. The death benefit due was $22,500. The plan provides that an employee may designate a beneficiary for the death benefit. The plan provides also that if no beneficiary is designated, then the benefit shall be made to the widow or widower of the employee, if surviving.

Mary Clark was the legal spouse of James Dean Clark at the time of his death, and Roger Lowell Clark was his brother. Mary Clark claimed the death benefit as the surviving widow, and Roger Lowell Clark claimed as the designated beneficiary. The plaintiff Fund was unable to determine which of them was entitled to the benefit, and to avoid double liability, brought this petition against the widow and brother as defendants to require them to interplead their claims. Rule 52.07. The plaintiff Fund paid the $22,500 death benefit into the registry of the court and was discharged of any liability to the defendants.

An employee establishes eligibility for benefits under the Fund plan by the completion of two hundred and fifty hours of employment during the last three consecutive months for which contributions are paid. A member who becomes ineligible because this requirement is not met may become eligible again by the completion of those hours and contributions. The hours worked by the participants of the Fund plan are reported by social security number, as are the employer contributions. Accordingly, the eligibility of an employee to the death benefit is determined by the name and social security number of the employee.

A death certificate was filed with the administrator of the Fund plan that described the decedent as James Dean Clark, social security number 500-38-2068, date of birth March 6, 1937, and married. The plan records confirmed that James D. Clark by that social security number was a member of Teamsters Local 541 eligible for the benefit. That union local, however, maintained records for two different memberships under the name JAMES D. CLARK. JAMES D. CLARK under social security number 500-38-2068 joined the local on October 22, 1958, paid the initiation fee for a new member, then withdrew from active status and then last resumed active status on March 1, 1984, paid dues regularly and was credited with employer contributions up to the date of the death, and was a participant in the Fund plan on May 25, 1985. JAMES D. CLARK under social security number 491-32-3495 joined the local on June 29, 1982, paid the initiation fee for a new member on that date, withdrew from active status five months later and never resumed active status. He was not a member of the union local on May 25, 1985, nor a participant in the Fund plan on that date.

The administrators of the Fund plan determined from the records that eligibility for the death benefit accrued to employee James D. Clark, social security number 500-38-2068. There was no beneficiary designation in the records for James D. Clark, born March 6, 1937, social security number 500-36-2068, however, so that the benefit was payable under the rules of the Fund plan to the surviving widow--Mary Clark. There was a beneficiary designation in the records for James D. Clark, born October 10, 1935, social security number 491-32-3495, but no eligibility for death benefits. The death benefit beneficiary designated in those records, nevertheless, was Roger Lowell Clark with the given relationship, brother. The death of James D. Clark, born October 10, 1935, social security number 491-32-3495, has not been reported to the Fund plan office.

Mary Clark claims the right to the interpleaded benefit fund as the surviving widow of the eligible employee, James Dean Clark, born March 6, 1937, social security number 500-38-2068. Her pleading admits that Roger L. Clark was the brother of her deceased husband, James D. Clark, but denies his claim to the benefit.

Roger Lowell Clark claims the right to the interpleaded fund as the beneficiary designated by James Dean Clark on July 5, 1982 on the enrollment card with the Fund. That claim rests on the premise that the James Dean Clark signatory, social security number 491-32-3495, and James Dean Clark, social security number 500-38-2068 and eligible employee, were the same person. That claim rests also on the related premise that ineligibility for the death benefit of James Dean Clark, social security number 491-32-3495, notwithstanding, the designation by James Dean Clark of Roger Lowell Clark upon the enrollment card was a valid expression of intent by the employee to make the brother the beneficiary of the death benefit rather than the wife, never named.

Indeed, there was evidence from which the finder of fact could infer that James Dean Clark, social security number 500-38-2068 and James Dean Clark, social security number 491-32-3495, were the same person. The pleadings of the claimant widow admit that the claimant Roger Lowell Clark was the brother of her deceased husband, James Dean Clark. There was also expert opinion that the person who signed the enrollment card for the Fund with designated social security number 491-32-3495 and the person who signed the Fund and Teamster documents with designated social security number 500-38-2068 were the same. The disparity in the social security numbers was explained by Lottie Jean Clark, then sister-in-law of the deceased James Dean Clark. Social security number 491-32-3495 is her own and was appropriated by the deceased without her consent. He was wanted by the FBI and the Army, and the bogus number was the means to continue to work but avoid discovery.

The case was presented to an empanelled jury. At the conclusion of all the evidence, the court sustained the motion of Mary Clark for "directed verdict" and entered judgment for Mary Clark as to the sum interpleaded.

On appeal, Roger Clark argues first that, the inferences from the evidence considered most favorably to his claim, a prima facie case was proven for submission to the jury, and hence the direction of verdict was error. The standard this argument proposes governs the scope of appellate review of cases where the jury verdict is rendered into a judgment. Mercer v. Thornton, 646 S.W.2d 375, 376[1,2] (Mo.App.1983); Rule 78.04. In this case, however--as the brief of Roger Clark informs--the trial was to an advisory jury, so that the end of the litigation was a judgment rendered by the court. Rule 73.01(a) & (b)...