Supreme Assembly of Royal Soc'y of Good Fellows v. Campbell

• Decision Date: 20 June 1891
• Parties: SUPREME ASSEMBLY OF ROYAL SOCIETY OF GOOD FELLOWS v. CAMPBELL et al.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

22 A. 307

17 R.I. 402

SUPREME ASSEMBLY OF ROYAL SOCIETY OF GOOD FELLOWS

v. CAMPBELL et al.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

June 20, 1891.

Bill of interpleader by Supreme Assembly of the Royal Society of Good Fellows against John H. Campbell, administrator of the estate of Duncan Campbell, Catherine Campbell, Frank E. Campbell, and Phebe A. Greenhalgh, to determine the right to an insurance fund. Pub. St. R. I c. 166, § 5, provides that the chattels real, household furniture, etc., or shares in the capital stock of any incorporated company, money on deposit, etc., which are the property of the wife, shall not he conveyed by the husband unless by deed, in which the wife shall join.

Daniel R. Bullou, Frank H.Jackson, and John Haskell Butler, for complainant.

Stephen A. Cook, Jr., and Louis L. Angell, for respondents Greenhalgh. John J. Arnold, for the other respondents.

MATTESON, C. J. This is a bill of interpleader to determine to whom shall be paid a benefit fund of $1,000 due from the complainant on account of the death of Duncan Campbell, one of its members. This fund is claimed on the one hand by the respondent John H. Campbell, administrator of the estate of the deceased, by virtue of an agreement entered into as herein set forth, and on the other hand by the respondent Phebe A. Greenhalgh, wife of the respondent James I. Greenhalgh, who, under the name of Phebe A. Metcalf. (her name prior to her marriage with Greenhalgh,) is designated as the beneficiary in the certificate of membership Issued by the complainant to the deceased. The deceased died December 7, 1887, unmarried, leaving as his next of kin the respondents, Catherine Campbell, his mother; John H. Campbell, Frank E.Campbell, his brothers; and Phebe A. Greenhalgh, his sister. On December 12, 1887, a meeting was held, at which all the respondents except Mrs. Greenhalgh were present, for the purpose of arranging for the settlement of his estate. At this meeting an agreement was entered into by which it was provided that John H. Campbell should be appointed administrator; that he should pay all bills owed by the deceased at his death; that he should put in order the burial lot in Swan Point cemetery according to the rules and regulations of the cemetery; that a suitable head-stone should be erected to the memory of the deceased, at a cost not exceeding $100; that the administrator should have orders on the different organizations to which the deceased belonged for the full amount of insurance in such organizations, and that the moneys collected thereon, or from any other source, should be placed in a general fund; that the sums required for the purposes specified, and also to provide for the perpetual care of the burial lot, should be paid by the administrator out of such general fund; and that the next of kin should share equally in the residue, no matter to whom the certificates of membership held by the deceased in the several societies might have been made payable. Mrs. Greenhalgh was represented at this meeting by her husband, and he entered into and signed the agreement in her behalf. The valuablo papers of the deceased were contained at the time of his death in a package kept in the safe of the Providence Gas Company. These papers were taken by John H. Campbell to the meeting; but the package was not opened until the signing of the agreement, and none of the respondents knew, until after the package was opened, who had been named as beneficiary in the certificates of membership. Pursuant to the agreement, John H.Campbell was subsequently appointed administrator, and accepted the office, Mrs. Greenhalgh and her husband both signing the application for his appointment. Powers of attorney from Mr. and Mrs. Greenhalgh to the administrator, dated December 19, 1887, were prepared and executed, authorizing him to demand, recover, receive, and receipt for all sums of money due or payable to Mrs. Greenhalgh, formerly Phebe A. Metcalf, from the societies of which the deceased was a member, by reason of his death. These powers of attorney were subsequently left by the administrator with these societies; but before the moneys due from them had been paid to the administrator Mr. and Mrs. Greenhalgh caused notices to be served upon the different societies revoking the powers of attorney, and forbidding the payment of the moneys. The administrator first learned of the revocation of the powers of attorney about the first of the following February or March, and had in the mean time, on the faith of the agreement, ordered a head-stone, and contracted for the improvement of the burial lot, and for its perpetual care. The complainant declined to pay the money to Mrs. Greenhalgh without the surrender of the certificate issued by it to the deceased. Mrs. Greenhalgh thereupon requested the administrator to deliver the certificate to her, but the administrator refused to comply with her request. Up to this time the certificate had remained, without objection, in the possession of the administrator. No adjustment of the matter having been made by the respondents, the complainant, after a year or more had elapsed, filed this bill.

In behalf of Mrs. Greenhalgh it is contended that the agreement was void for want of consideration. The purpose of the agreement was to provide for the settlement of the affairs of the deceased, and the amicable distribution among nis next of kin of the surplus of his estate, including the benefit funds of the several societies referred to, afterpayment of his debts, and the sums required for the objects specified. The distribution was not unreasonble, for it was an equal distribution among the next of kin, and the same which the law makes of intestate estates. There is no charge of fraud or undue influence, and, so far as the testimony discloses, all of the parties to the agreement were possessed of equal knowledge, and stood upon an equal footing. In the uncertainty as to who had been named as beneficiary or beneficiaries, each was willing to surrender his chance of getting a larger share, or the whole, for the certainty of an equal share with the others. If there was no other consideration for the agreement than this mutual surrender by each of his or her chance to receive a larger share, we think the agreement could be supported. There are numerous cases of compromises of doubtful or disputed rights, not only between members of families, but between strangers, which rest upon no other consideration than the surrender by the parties of a portion of such doubtful or disputed rights, and which have been upheld, though it may have appeared upon subsequent investigation or adjudication that" one of the claimants had no right, or not so great a right as the share he received by the compromise, in the property in doubt or in controversy. In Dunnage v. White, 1 Swanst, 137, 151,152, the master of the rolls remarks: "Undoubtedly parties entitled in different events may, while the uncertainty exists, each taking his chance, effect a valid compromise." The agreement in the case at bar was not strictly a compromise, since at the time it was made no dispute had arisen between the parties, and neither had made any claim to any greater share in the whole or any part of the estate than the others. There are, however, cases which do not involve any element of disputed right, and which, therefore, were no more compromises than the agreement in question, which rest upon the consideration of a mutual chance. In Beckley v. Newland, 2 P. Wms. 182, the complainant and respondent had married sisters, who were cousins and presumptive heirs of a Mr. Turgis, a very rich man. Turgis made a will, in which he left a large estate, real and personal, to the respondent, but only a small real estate to the complainant. Before the execution of the will the complainant and respondent had entered into articles by which they agreed that whatever should be given to either should be equally divided. The lord chancellor said: "A performance of ...