The Supreme Court of Honor v. Updegraff

• Decision Date: 06 February 1904
• Docket Number: 13,473
• Citation: 75 P. 477,68 Kan. 474
• Parties: THE SUPREME COURT OF HONOR v. FLORENCE L. UPDEGRAFF
• Court: Kansas Supreme Court

75 P. 477

68 Kan. 474

THE SUPREME COURT OF HONOR v. FLORENCE L. UPDEGRAFF

No. 13,473

Supreme Court of Kansas

February 6, 1904

Decided January, 1904.

Error from Reno district court; M. P. SIMPSON, judge.

Judgment affirmed.

SYLLABUS

SYLLABUS BY THE COURT.

FRATERNAL INSURANCE -- Policy Construed -- Suicide of Beneficiary. A life-insurance policy provided that it should be incontestable after two years from its date. The insured who held the policy, which was payable to his wife committed suicide after the two-year period had elapsed. Held, that the beneficiary was entitled to recover the amount.

Prigg & Williams, and William B. Risse, for plaintiff in error.

George A. Vandeveer, and F. L. Martin, for defendant in error.

SMITH J. All the Justices concurring.

OPINION

SMITH, J.:

This was an action on a certificate of membership in a fraternal order, the Supreme Court of Honor, held by George C. Updegraff at the time of his death, in October, 1901. The action was brought by defendant in error, wife of the deceased, who was the beneficiary named in the certificate.

The insured came to his death by suicide more than two years after the date of his certificate of membership, which certificate was in effect a policy of life insurance for the sum of $ 2000, conditioned on the insured's complying with the constitution, rules and by-laws of the order. The certificate provided that the company should not be liable if the insured should die in violation of section 2, article 10, of the constitution, which was made a part thereof. It reads:

"This order will not pay the benefits of members who commit suicide, whether sane or insane, except it be committed in delirium resulting from illness, or while the member is under treatment for insanity, or has been judicially declared to be insane; but in all cases not within said exceptions, the amount of money contributed to the benefit fund by such members shall be returned, and shall be paid to the beneficiaries out of said fund in lieu of the benefit."

A section of the constitution of the Supreme Court of Honor in force when the benefit certificate was issued, and at the date of the holder's death was as follows:

"SEC. 99. After two years certificates of membership shall be incontestable for any cause except fraud, violation of the constitution or laws of this order, or a failure to pay the assessments for the benefit and general funds as provided by the laws."

Defendant in error had judgment in the court below.

The sole question involved is whether the provision in the benefit certificate which rendered it incontestable after two years was void when it appeared that the insured took his own life. Counsel for plaintiff in error rely on the case Ritter v. Mutual Life Insurance Co., 169 U.S. 139, 18 S.Ct. 300, 42 L.Ed. 693, which in effect holds that where there is no provision in a policy of insurance respecting suicide it will be avoided by the death of the insured by his own hand; that public policy requires that self-destruction should avoid the policy. That case was decided on the facts presented in the record, which showed an absence of any agreement in the policy respecting death by suicide. It was concluded that in such cases there is an implied agreement that the insured will not destroy himself. It cannot be denied that much of the argument of the learned justice who delivered the opinion is applicable to the case before us. We must, however, look at the facts on which the conclusion of the court rested and see how nearly they coincide with the facts in the present case in order to determine the force of the decision as an authority to be followed. As before stated, in the Ritter case there was no stipulation in the policy respecting suicide. The amount of the insurance was payable at death to the estate of the insured, and not to any particular person as beneficiary. Missouri has a statute excluding suicide as a defense to an action on an insurance policy, unless it can be shown that self-destruction was contemplated by the insured at the time of making the application. This statute has been held to be valid, without apparent question that it contravenes public policy. (Knights Templars' Indemnity Co. v. Jarman, 187 U.S. 197, 23 S.Ct. 108, 47 L.Ed. 139; Haynie v. Knights Templars & Masons' Indm. Co., 139 Mo. 416, 41 S.W. 461; Christian v. Ins. Co., 143 id. 460, 45 S.W. 268; Logan v. Fidelity and Casualty Co., 146 id. 114, 47 S.W. 948.)

In Patterson and others v. The Natural Premium Mutual Life Ins. Co., 100 Wis. 118, 123, 75 N.W. 980, 42 L. R. A. 253, 69 Am. St. Rep. 899, it was said:

"The fact that insurance companies have almost universally deemed it necessary to insert in their policies provisions exempting them...