Seidenkranz v. Supreme Lodge, K. and L. of Honor

• Decision Date: 04 December 1917
• Docket Number: No. 14873.,14873.
• Citation: 199 S.W. 451
• Parties: SEIDENKRANZ v. SUPREME LODGE, KNIGHTS AND LADIES OF HONOR.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

199 S.W. 451

SEIDENKRANZ v. SUPREME LODGE, KNIGHTS AND LADIES OF HONOR.

No. 14873.

St. Louis Court of Appeals. Missouri.

Submitted November 7, 1917.

Opinion Filed December 4, 1917.

Rehearing Denied December 21, 1917.

Appeal from St. Louis Circuit Court, James E. Withrow, Judge.

"Not to be officially published."

Action by Catherine Seidenkranz against the Supreme Lodge, Knights and Ladies of Honor, a corporation. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Affirmed.

Charles F. Krone, of St. Louis, for appellant. Paul Dillon and James R. Claiborne, both of St. Louis, for respondent.

REYNOLDS, P. J.

Action on a benefit certificate for $2,000, of date September, 1894, issued to one Alvin E. Seidenkranz, the amount payable on his death to plaintiff, his wife. Averring that her husband died while a member of the society, whereby the amount stated became due, and a demand for its payment and refusal to pay, judgment is asked for the above amount and for costs.

Admitting that it is a corporation duly organized and existing according to law as a fraternal and beneficial society, having a system of lodges and a ritual and a representative form of government, and that it is licensed to do business in this state, the defendant denies all other allegations of the petition.

There was a trial before the court and a jury, resulting in a verdict for plaintiff for the amount claimed. Judgment followed, from which defendant has duly appealed.

At the trial there was no question of fact about the issuance of the certificate and the payment of all dues and assessments. So says the learned counsel for appellant in his brief and printed statement and argument filed with us, that counsel further stating that there are only these questions to be determined:

"(1) Whether upon the evidence any presumption of death arises; (2) if so, whether or not that presumption is conclusively rebutted by all of the evidence on both sides, constituting proof which will not admit of any reasonable hypothesis except that Alvin Seidenkranz, the insured, was the same Alvin Seidenkranz who lived in Cincinnati down into the year 1910 and was seen as late as January 15th, 1914; and (3) whether this court should not simply reverse the judgment rendered below because the evidence admits of no reasonable possibility, except that the two men were the same men."

We give the issues as set out by learned counsel for appellant without, however, accepting his conclusions.

In the case at bar there was no evidence of actual death. The plaintiff is proceeding under the provisions of section 6340, Revised Statutes Missouri 1909, which reads:

"If any person who shall have resided in this state go from and do not return to this state for seven successive years, he shall be presumed to be dead in any case wherein his death shall come in question, unless proof be made that he was alive within that time."

Absence from this state for seven successive years being claimed, and it being averred and admitted that during all that period the dues and assessments for which plaintiff's husband was liable had been paid, the question presented in Bradley v. Modern Woodmen, 146 Mo. App. 428, 124 S. W. 69, and cases there cited and following it, namely, of death at a certain period within the seven years, is not present. Here the proof is that plaintiff and Alvin E. Seidenkranz were married in 1891 and lived together until June 30th, 1906, residing during that time in that part of the city of St. Louis known as Carondelet. They had four children, two sons now living, one born in 1892 and the other in 1896. Alvin E. Seidenkranz was a butcher, employed in a packing house. He left his home in St. Louis on June 30th, 1906. His wife received a letter from him, transmitting her money, the letter dated Cincinnati, Ohio, July 2nd or 3rd, 1906. He continued writing to his wife from then on, until the first of August of that year. In this last letter he wrote that he had no doubt that the next letter his wife would write him would be to Louisville, Ky. From that date on neither she nor her family heard anything from him, although in the meantime she had written to him, addressed to the care of the packing company with whom he had been employed in Louisville. She received word from the company at Louisville that no man by the name of Alvin E. Seidenkranz was employed by them and her letter in the care of the company was returned. Plaintiff had written her husband two letters, one addressed to him at Cincinnati, Ohio, and received no reply to that; the next one having been directed to him at Louisville, and returned. No cause whatever was shown, so far as known by any of the witnesses for plaintiff, why the husband should have disappeared or absented himself or deserted his wife and family, his relations with them having always been pleasant and harmonious. As far as the two sons knew, and as far as the other witnesses for plaintiff knew, there had never been any dissension in the household, plaintiff always having been an affectionate husband and father and a good provider. From that date on, that is from about August 1st, 1906, plaintiff had never heard a word from her husband. She was not a woman of means, after her husband left working for a living, and without means and having no clue to her husband's whereabouts, she was unable to make a search for him, beyond making inquiries among their relatives. She always thought he would come back. No one pretends to have seen him in this state after June 30th, 1906. To the knowledge of his wife he had never gone under the name of Seiring in St. Louis or elsewhere and the last she heard of him was in Cincinnati, Ohio, from which place he wrote to her in July and August, 1906.

There were two photographs introduced in evidence and which are reproduced before us, purporting to be photographs of Alvin E. Seidenkranz. One of these was identified by his wife and children and other relatives of the family as a correct likeness of the husband, taken in St. Louis about 1896. The...