Supreme Lodge Knights of Pythias v. Knights of Pythias of North America

• Decision Date: 08 July 1912
• Docket Number: 15,407
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: SUPREME LODGE KNIGHTS OF PYTHIAS ET AL. v. KNIGHTS OF PYTHIAS OF NORTH AMERICA, ETC

59 So. 88

102 Miss. 280

SUPREME LODGE KNIGHTS OF PYTHIAS ET AL. v. KNIGHTS OF PYTHIAS OF NORTH AMERICA, ETC

No. 15,407

Supreme Court of Mississippi

July 8, 1912

APPEAL from the chancery court of Washington county, HON.E. N THOMAS, Chancellor.

Suit by the Supreme Lodge Knights of Pythias and others against the Knights of Pythias of North America and South America Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia. From a judgment for defendants, complainants appeal.

This suit was begun by a bill in chancery filed by the appellants the Supreme Lodge Knights of Pythias, a corporation, the Grand Lodge of Mississippi, a corporation, and certain officers and members, against the appellees, an incorporated negro order, and its purpose is to prevent the use by the latter concern of the name Knights of Pythias and of the emblems, insignia, and regalia of Knights of Pythias. It is shown that the white order was founded in 1864 at Washington D. C., and charter was obtained in August, 1870, from Congress incorporating said order under the name of Supreme Lodge Knights of Pythias of the World; that certain amendments were had during the years following prior to 1890 when said charter expired by limitation at the end of twenty years. After the charter had expired, the Supreme Lodge continued to carry on the business of the order, and afterwards, to wit, in 1894, the order obtained another charter under the corporate name of Supreme Lodge of Knights of Pythias. The white order entered Mississippi in 1871. The negro order was organized about the year 1881 in Mississippi, and imitated the white order in name, emblems, etc., and was incorporated in the District of Columbia in 1889 under the name "The Supreme Lodge of Knights of Pythias of Jurisdiction of North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia." The negro order was incorporated in Mississippi in the year 1902 under the name of Grand Lodge (colored) Knights of Pythias of the State of Mississippi, under the Supreme Jurisdiction of North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia," although it had been operating in Mississippi many years prior to that time.

The bill alleges that, aside from the fact that complainant acquired the prior exclusive use to the name Knights of Pythias and the insignia, regalia, banners, etc., of said order, it has acquired valuable property rights and carries enormous amounts of insurance upon its members, and that it is embarrassing in the extreme for negroes to organize into lodges and call themselves Knights of Pythias, and leads to much confusion. It is not shown, however, that negroes are ever admitted to the white order, or that whites are ever admitted to the negro order. On the...