Pringle v. Modern Woodmen of Am.

• Decision Date: 18 April 1906
• Parties: PRINGLE v. MODERN WOODMEN OF AMERICA.
• Court: Nebraska Supreme Court

76 Neb. 384

107 N.W. 756

PRINGLE

v.MODERN WOODMEN OF AMERICA.

Supreme Court of Nebraska.

April 18, 1906.

Syllabus by the Court.

It is a settled law of this state that if a beneficiary insurance association, like the defendant in error in this action, continues to collect dues and mortuary assessments from a member who has forfeited his beneficiary certificate, after knowledge of such forfeiture by its officers or agents intrusted with the duty of making assessments, it shall be held to have waived such forfeiture, without regard to any restrictions or limitations incorporated in its certificates of membership or by-laws with respect to the power or authority of such persons to make such waivers.

It is the duty of an agent to communicate to his principal every fact affecting the transaction intrusted to his care which comes to his knowledge in course of or during its performance, and this duty, in an action between the principal and the adverse party, the agent is, with certain exceptions noted in the opinion, conclusively presumed to have obeyed.

Commissioners' Opinion. Department No. 1. Error to District Court, Deuel County; Grimes, Judge.

Action by Amanda Pringle against the Modern Woodmen of America. Judgment for defendant, and plaintiff brings error. Reversed and new trial granted.G. C. McAllister, for plaintiff in error.

W. H. Thompson and T. S. Allen, for defendant in error.

AMES, C.

There is no conflict in the evidence with respect to the facts essential to the determination of the rights of the parties to this action which was tried by the court alone, a jury having been waived.

Frank W. Pringle was a member of the defendant society holding a beneficiary certificate in favor of his mother, the plaintiff, which contained a clause to the effect that it shall become null and void if, while such a member, he should become convicted of a felony. While such member he was convicted of a felony, in consequence of which he was sentenced to serve a term in the Nebraska state penitentiary where he died about six months afterwards. After Pringle had been arrested for the offense of which he was subsequently convicted, but before his trial, he deposited with the clerk of the local camp a sum of money sufficient to pay his dues and assessments, thereafter to accrue, for the term of four months, and directed the clerk so to apply it as such obligations should mature. This direction the clerk obeyed by remitting the required sums monthly to the head camp; such remittances being made all, or nearly all, of them after the conviction and with the knowledge by the clerk of that fact. After the fund had become exhausted the plaintiff paid to the clerk two successive installments which were received and transmitted by him to the head camp in the usual manner. Pringle died on the 6th day of September, without ever having been in default of dues or assessments and a member in good standing, so far as appeared from the books and records of the order, and was buried by, and with the rites and ceremonies of, the local camp as having died in full fellowship therewith. After his death an officer or agent of the head camp made or attempted to make a tender to the plaintiff of the sums accepted as dues and assessments after the date of conviction. The evidence with respect to what occurred in this transaction, and as to the formal sufficiency of the attempted tender, is somewhat conflicting, but in our view of the matter the fact is not material. A suit on the membership certificate resulted in a judgment for the defendant.

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