Supreme Lodge, Knights of Pythias v. Smyth
| Decision Date | 28 January 1918 |
| Docket Number | No. 107,107 |
| Citation | 62 L.Ed. 492,245 U.S. 594,38 S.Ct. 210 |
| Parties | SUPREME LODGE, KNIGHTS OF PYTHIAS, v. SMYTH |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Messrs. John J. McCall, of Albany, N. Y., and James E. Watson, of Rushville, Ind., for appellant.
Mr. Harry V. Borst, of Amsterdam, N. Y., for appellee.
We shall designate the parties as they were in the trial court, the plaintiff in error as defendant and the defendant in error as plaintiff.
This is a suit to enjoin an increase of assessment upon a certificate—we shall call it a policy—of insurance on the life of the plaintiff, issued by the defendant. The asserted claim, approved by the lower courts, is that the defendant is estopped to demand such increased payment, or to cancel the policy for failure to pay it, for the reason that at the time plaintiff's policy was delivered to him there was handed to him by the secretary of the local section a pamphlet which purported to be a copy of the 'Constitution and General Laws' of the insurance section or 'Endowment Rank' of the defendant, which were then in force. In this copy of the general laws—by-laws—article IV, section 1, reads:
'Each member * * * shall pay * * * a monthly assessment, as provided in the following table, and shall continue to pay the same amount thereafter as long as he remains a member of the Endowment Rank.'
This provision, it is contended, became a part of the contract of insurance with the plaintiff, which could not be changed without his consent, and made unlawful any increase in his assessment. The defense is that power was given to the defendant by its charter to change its by-laws that by provisions in his policy and in his application for it, the plaintiff was notified and charged with knowledge of this fact; and that the increase of assessment complained of was duly authorized pursuant to the terms of this grant of power.
In the disposition which we make of the case the further claim of the defendant, that the by-law relied upon by the plaintiff had been amended before the policy was issued to him, becomes unimportant.
The facts of the case before us make it clear that it must be ruled by the decision of this court in Supreme Lodge, Knights of Pythias, v. Mims, 241 U. S. 574, 36 Sup. Ct. 702, 60 L. Ed. 1179, L. R. A. 1916F, 919.
The defendant is the same fraternal insurance corporation which was plaintiff in error in that case, and its corporate history there detailed need...
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