Schonfield v. Turner

• Decision Date: 06 December 1889
• Citation: 12 S.W. 626
• Parties: SCHONFIELD <I>et al.</I> <I>v.</I> TURNER.
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

12 S.W. 626

SCHONFIELD et al.

v. TURNER.

Supreme Court of Texas.

December 6, 1889.

Error to district court, Rusk county; J. G. HAZLEWOOD, Judge.

Rufus Price and F. B. Sexton, for plaintiffs in error. Booty & Young, J. H. Turner, and Martin Casey, for defendant in error.

HENRY, J.

The order of Knights of Honor is an incorporated body. One purpose of its existence is to furnish insurance upon the lives of the members of its subordinate lodges. In the year 1880 one David Schonfield became a member of the order. Among the objects of the corporation, its charter states one in the following language: "To promote benevolence and charity by establishing a widows' and orphans' benefit fund, from which, on satisfactory evidence of the death of a member of the corporation who has complied with its lawful requirements, a sum, not exceeding five thousand dollars, shall be paid to his family, or as he may direct." The constitution of the corporation at the same date, among others, contained the following provisions: "Each applicant shall direct in his application to whom he desires his death benefit paid. The beneficiary may be changed as the member may thereafter direct, in accordance with the laws of this order, and such changes shall be entered in the benefit certificate. A member may at any time, while in good standing, surrender his certificate, which, together with a fee of fifty cents, shall be forwarded by the reporter of his lodge, under seal, to the supreme reporter, who shall thereupon cancel the old certificate, and issue a new one in lieu thereof to such member, payable as he shall have directed; said direction and surrender to be made on the back of the benefit certificate surrendered, signed by the member, and attested by the reporter, under seal of the lodge. In the event of the death of one or more of the beneficiaries designated by the member before the decease of such member, if he shall make no further disposition thereof, upon his death such benefit shall be paid in full to the surviving beneficiary or beneficiaries, each sharing pro rata as provided in the benefit certificate. In the event of the death of all the beneficiaries designated by the member before the decease of such member, if he shall make no other disposition thereof, the benefit shall be paid to the heirs of the deceased member, and, if no person or persons shall be entitled to receive such benefit by the laws of this order, it shall revert to the widows' and orphans' benefit fund." When Schonfield first became a member of a lodge, he received a "benefit certificate," issued under the above-quoted charter and constitutional regulation, binding the supreme lodge of the corporation to pay out of the widows' and orphans' benefit fund to one Friedlander the sum of $2,000, in accordance with and under the laws governing the order, upon satisfactory evidence of the death of said member and the surrender of the certificate: provided that the certificate had not been surrendered by said member, or canceled at his request, and another certificate issued in accordance with the laws of the order. After paying his dues for several years, Schonfield's health failed him, and he seems to have become very poor; having neither the money necessary for his personal maintenance or to pay his dues to the lodge. In this condition of affairs, the appellee, T. P. Turner, furnished him $50, and took from him a transfer of his benefit certificate. The transfer was made by Schonfield, by filling up and signing a blank transfer on the back of the benefit certificate. Subsequently, on the 28th day of June, 1884, the Supreme Lodge, Knights of Honor, upon Schonfield's surrendering the first certificate, issued to him, in lieu thereof, a second one, for the same amount, payable to T. P. Turner, and similar in all respects to the first one. The laws of the order when the two certificates were issued, as well as the terms and conditions of the certificates themselves, were substantially the same, and so remained until the 1st day of July, 1884, when an amendment of the constitution of the order went into effect, whereby a clause of the constitution formerly reading that the insurance money be paid "to his [the member's]...