Supreme Council of Royal Arcanum v. Brashears
| Decision Date | 22 June 1899 |
| Citation | 43 A. 866,89 Md. 624 |
| Parties | SUPREME COUNCIL OF ROYAL ARCANUM v. BRASHEARS. |
| Court | Maryland Court of Appeals |
Appeal from circuit court, Frederick county; James McSherry, John C Motter, and James B. Henderson, Judges.
Action by Christina E. Brashears against the Supreme Council of the Royal Arcanum. From a judgment in favor of plaintiff defendant appeals. Affirmed.
Argued before PAGE, PEARCE, BOYD, and SCHMUCKER, JJ.
A. C Trippe, Wm. P. Maulsby, and James A. C. Bond, for appellant. William H. Thomas, Clabaugh & Roberts, and Urner, Keedy & Urner, for appellee.
On January 29, 1896, Cornelius O. Brashears, who was a resident of Mt. Airy, in Frederick county, became a member of the Mt. Airy Council of the Royal Arcanum. On the 24th of March in the same year Brashears spent a portion of the day in Ellicott City, where he purchased a six-dram bottle of laudanum. In the afternoon of the same day he started towards his home on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, but left the cars at Marriottsville, and walked up the public road, where he was last seen sitting upon a fallen tree reading a book. Two days afterwards his dead body was found near the place at which he was last seen alive. There was a pistol wound in the head of the body when it was found, and a pistol, the empty laudanum bottle, and another empty bottle, which smelled of whisky, all lay near by. At the time of his death he was in good standing in the Mt. Airy Council, and all of his dues to it were paid. The Royal Arcanum is a well-known mutual benevolent association. It is composed of a supreme council, incorporated by the state of Massachusetts, which is the governing body of the society, and numerous subordinate councils, which are unincorporated local organizations. A person joining the Arcanum becomes a member of one of the local councils, but not of the supreme council, which has no intercourse or dealings with him, otherwise than through the local council of which he is a member. One of the most important features of the association is a scheme, in the nature of life insurance, for the payment, at the death of each member, of a specified sum of money to a beneficiary designated by him. The terms and conditions upon which this payment is to be made, and the person who is entitled to receive it, are set forth in a benefit certificate, which is furnished to the member. When an individual joins the Arcanum, his benefit certificate is issued by the supreme council, and is sent by it, not to him, but to the local council of which he is a member, and the latter delivers it to him. When a member dies the by-laws do not require the beneficiary to furnish notice and proofs of death, as in cases of ordinary life insurance, but they distinctly impose upon the local council to which he belonged the obligation to appoint a committee to ascertain the cause and circumstances of the death, and to send formal notice and proof of the death to the supreme council, upon blank forms supplied by that body. The supreme council then passes upon the proofs, with the right to demand further proofs from the local council, and, when the proofs are approved by the officials of the supreme council, it transmits to the local council a check to the order of the beneficiary for the sum due, and the local council pays the check to the beneficiary, and procures the return of the outstanding benefit certificate. In the present case, after the death of Brashears, formal proofs and notice of his death, and the circumstances of it, were furnished, within the required time, by the Mt. Airy Council, which was the local council of which he was a member, to the supreme council, and it returned them to the local council for a further report, which was sent as requested, and was duly acknowledged, without objection, by the secretary of the supreme council. The report of the committee of investigation appointed by the local council, which formed part of the proofs of death forwarded to the supreme council, stated the cause of death to be suicide, and along with the report, on a separate piece of paper, was a statement, in the nature of a certificate, as follows: When Brashears desired to become a member of the Mt. Airy Council, he, in accordance with the rules of the order, filed an application, which contained a variety of statements as to his habits and condition, among which was the statement that he was temperate in his habits. The application contained a provision warranting the truth of its statements, and agreeing that, if any of them were untrue or fraudulent, or if there were any concealment of facts therein, or to or from the medical examiner, the rights of the beneficiary should be forfeited. When this application from Brashears was received by the local (or Mt. Airy) council, it directed him to present himself to the medical examiner, and he did so, and, in reply to the questions propounded to him by that official, said that he did not use alcoholic or other stimulants, that he was then a total abstainer, although until four years prior thereto he drank occasionally. These answers were in writing, and had appended to them a warranty of their truthfulness, which was signed by Brashears. The certificate of membership which was issued to him contained a provision that it was issued "upon condition that the statements made by him in his application for membership in said council, and the statements certified by him to the medical examiner, *** be made part of this contract." The certificate did not refer to the statements as warranties, nor make any reference to the warranty of their truth by Brashears. It further provided for the payment of $3,000 to the appellee, who is the widow of Brashears, "upon satisfactory evidence of the death of said member," but made no reference to the cause or method of his death, and did not mention suicide at all. At the trial of the case in the circuit court the appellant, as defendant, took four exceptions to the rulings of the court during the progress of the case, apart from the exception to the rejection of its prayers, submitted after the testimony was all in.
The first exception was to the refusal of the court to require the plaintiff to read to the jury, as part of the official notice of death, the paper, attached to the notice, dated March 30, 1896, signed by Wallenhorst. The same question, in a slightly different form, was raised by the fourth exception, which was taken to the court's refusal to permit the defendant to read that paper to the jury as evidence on its behalf. We think the court below was correct in both of these rulings. The paper in question is, at best an ex parte expression of the opinion of Wallenhorst. It is not a certificate of the findings of a coroner's jury, or of the result of an inquest. The party signing it does not profess to be an official coroner, nor does it appear upon what ground or by what authority he claims to be what he designates as "acting coroner." It is not strictly part of the proof or notice of death, and was not called for by the policy or certificate of membership, or by the blank forms of proof supplied by the supreme council; nor do the by-laws of the association require its production. It was, in fact, furnished by the Mt. Airy Council, and not by the appellee, who, under the system of proofs of death adopted by the supreme council, was not required to furnish proof of death. It cannot be regarded as a representation made by her, nor was it binding upon her. Anderson v. Supreme Council, 135 N.Y. 107, 31 N.E. 1092; Beach, Ins. §§ 1216, 1217. It is equally clear that this paper was not a proper one to be read to the jury, on the offer of the appellant, as evidence to prove that the death occurred by suicide; for, although the formal proofs of death were properly admitted to show that the requirements of the certificate of membership had been complied with in that respect, they were not evidence for any other purpose, and their sufficiency was a question for the court to decide. Insurance Co. v. Stibbe, 46 Md. 312; Association v. Ficklin, 74 Md. 183, 21 A. 680, and 23 A. 197; Insurance Co. v. Nicklas (Oct. Term, 1898; not yet officially reported) 41 A. 906. The paper was, at best, a mere expression of the opinion of Wallenhorst as to the cause of Brashears' death. It was not even verified by affidavit, and it lacked every essential feature of evidence. To permit mere ex parte statements, or even affidavits, which accompany proofs of death to be read to the jury would be a most dangerous practice; for they might be taken by them as being proof, and undue weight attached to them. Cook v. Insurance Co., 84 Mich. 12, 47 N.W. 568. The presumption of law is that the death of the insured was due to natural causes, and the fact that it resulted from a pistol-shot wound does not change the presumption, which in that case is that the wound was the result of accident; and the burden of proof is upon the defendant to show by a preponderance of testimony that it was not the result of accident. Insurance Co. v. Nicklas, supra; Bliss, Ins. § 337; Insurance Co. v. McConkey, 127 U.S. 661, 8 S.Ct. 1360; Mallory v. Insurance Co., 47 N.Y. 54; Insurance Co. v. Hogan, 80 Ill. 35; Association v. Sargent, 142 U.S. 691, 12 S.Ct. 332. Wallenhorst testified in the case, and the jury had the benefit of his evidence as to the condition of the body and its surroundings when he saw it. ...
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