Supreme Lodge Mut. Prot. v. Gelbke

• Decision Date: 25 October 1902
• Parties: SUPREME LODGE MUT. PROTECTION v. GELBKE.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

198 Ill. 365

64 N.E. 1058

SUPREME LODGE MUT. PROTECTION

v.GELBKE.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Oct. 25, 1902.

Appeal from appellate court, First district.

Action by Fredericka Gelbke against the Supreme Lodge Mutual Protection on a life insurance certificate. From a judgment of the appellate court (100 Ill. App. 190) affirming a judgment for plaintff, defendant appeals. Reversed.

Cratty Bros., Jarvis & Latimer, for appellant.

E. F. Herrmann, J. Kent Green, and E. M. Winston, for appellee.

CARTWRIGHT, J.

The branch appellate court for the First district affirmed a judgment for $2,165, recovered by appellee in the superior court of Cook county against appellant upon a membership certificate issued to Louis Gelbke, for the payment of the amount of one assessment, not exceeding $2,000, to his wife, the appellee, after his death, upon the condition that he had complied with the charter, constitution, laws, and rules of the order, and with the stipulation that the rights of the beneficiary should be determined by the charter, constitution, laws, rules, and regulations of the order in force at the time the sum due should be payable. The briefs and arguments on both sides, although entitled in this court, bear internal evidence of being addressed almost wholly to the appellate court, and are devoted largely to controverted questions of fact, even including the question whether the damages awarded were excessive. We shall, of course, not attempt to examine controverted questions of fact, and we do not deem it necessary to consider some of the legal questions argued by counsel, for the reason that they have little, if any, materiality under the evidence contained in the record. The defense was that the death of Louis Gelbke was caused by his own suicidal act, and that defendant was thereby exempted from liability by virtue of its contract with him. When the certificate was issued, there was no provision in the charter, constitution, laws, or rules of defendant against death from suicide. By-laws were subsequently adopted providing that there should be no liability upon the death of a member if such death was due to his suicidal act, whether at the time he was sane or insane, but in such a case there should be refunded to the beneficiary a sum equal to the assessments paid, with interest at 4 per cent. These by-laws were offered in evidence by the defendant, and objected to by plaintiff because they were adopted at meetings of the supreme lodge held in other states than Missouri, by which state the defendant was incorporated, and the objection was sustained. It was proved, however, that Gelbke was suspended for a failure to pay assessments, and was reinstated on his written application dated September 27, 1897, containing the following agreement on his part: ‘In consideration of my being reinstated as a member, I further agree to be bound by the laws of the order now in force, or as they may be hereafter amended or enacted, and that, should my disability or death be caused by or result, directly or indirectly, * * * by my own suicidal act, sane or insane, * * * neither myself nor any of my beneficiaries shall be entitled to participate in the widows' and orphans' protection fund; * * * nor shall my beneficiary or beneficiaries have any claim * * * in case my death shall result from or depend upon any disease or injury which I may have had, acquire, or receive prior to my being readmitted as a member in your order, if readmitted to beneficiary membership, and my benefit certificate restored to me.’ There was no evidence of fraud or misrepresentation on the part of the defendant respecting the suspension or the reinstatement, and no evidence tending to show that Gelbke was not entirely capable of protecting his own interests and of entering into the agreement. He did not question the suspension or the validity of it, and was reinstated in consideration of his application and the representations therein contained. It was contended by the defendant that Gelbke was not insane at the time of his death on May 24, 1898, but, if he was insane at that time, his mental derangement related solely to suspicions which he entertained concerning the fidelity of his wife. There was no evidence tending to show general incapacity to contract at the time of the reinstatement.

On May 30, 1898, plaintiff gave defendant notice of Gelbke's death, and of her claim against the defendant, in which she stated the cause of death as follows: ‘The cause of death was from poison taken while temporarily insane, as shown by the inclosed certificate of death issued by the board of health and by a certified copy of the coroner's inquest, hereto attached.’ The finding at the inquest, attached to the notice and referred to above, was that Gelbke ‘came to his death on the 24th day of May, 1898, from carbolic acid poison, said poison taken with suicidal intent while temporarily insane.’ The evidence for the defendant tended to prove that he took it intentionally, with full consciousness of the physical nature of the act, and intending to take his life by that means. Plaintiff's claim was that Gelbke was insane, and that he did not intentionally take his own life. The evidence tended to show that he had a violent and groundless jealousy of his wife, amounting to an insane...