Woodmen Of World Life Ins. Soc v. Grant
| Decision Date | 10 June 1946 |
| Citation | 38 S.E.2d 450,185 Va 288 |
| Court | Virginia Supreme Court |
| Parties | WOODMEN OF WORLD LIFE INS. SOC. v. GRANT. |
Rehearing Denied Sept. 21, 1946.
Error to Law and Equity Court of City of Richmond; Haskins Hobson, Judge.
Action on a certificate of life insurance by Florence B. Grant against the Woodmen of the World Life Insurance Society. To review an adverse judgment, defendant brings error.
Affirmed.
Before CAMPBELL, C. J, and HOLT, HUDGINS, GREGORY, BROWNING, EGGLESTON, and SPRATLEY, JJ.
Montague & Montague, of Richmond, for plaintiff in error.
Thomas A. Williams and L. C. O'Connor, both of Richmond, for defendant in error.
In 1894, Mr. R. N. Grant became a member of the Woodmen of the World Life Insurance Society of Omaha, Nebraska. At that time he applied for and secured a certificate for $2,000 life insurance. For fifty years he paid his premiums or dues, up until the time of his death in 1944. His widow, who was beneficiary in the certificate, filed proper proofs of death with the Society but it refused payment and rejected her claim upon the sole ground that the payment for January, 1944, had not been paid on time. The Society informed her that it should have been paid not later than January 31, while it was actually paid, as it contends, on February 21. Mrs. Grant thereupon brought an action at law against the Society and recovered a verdict for the face of the certificate, less the amount of a loan which Mr. Grant had obtained on the certificate in his lifetime. Motion was made to set aside the verdict and the court sustained the motion upon the ground that it had failed to instruct the jury correctly upon the law of waiver.
Thereupon the verdict was set aside and the case ordered to be again tried. Upon the second trial a verdict was returned in favor of the plaintiff, and the motion made to set it aside was overruled. The court entered judgment upon the verdict. We are asked to review the judgment and reverse it upon the ground that the evidence does not sustain a verdict in favor of the plaintiff, and upon the further ground that the court improperly instructed the jury.
The evidence discloses that Mr. Grant became a member of the Society in October, 1894, and held a benefit certificate as a member of Camp No. 3, located at Norfolk, Virginia. He later moved to Richmond and held his membership there. His payments were $5.32 each month. These are referred to as dues. At the time of his death he had used all of his loan benefits except $2.76.
It was claimed that the payment for January, 1944, was not made within themonth of January, but made on February 21, 1944, and therefore the certificate was automatically suspended and became invalid, under the provisions of section 63(b) of the Constitution, Laws and By-Laws of the Society.
The contract upon which this action was brought is the certificate mentioned above and the Constitution, Laws and By-Laws of the Society. (See Code, sec. 4280, Michie.) The certificate holder is charged with knowledge of and was bound by all of these provisions and all amendments to them. They constitute 101 pages of a booklet which carries an index of 12 pages. He is also charged with knowledge of the by-laws of his local camp. All of these are couched in technical and legal language and are naturally difficult for a layman to understand. Some of the laws appear to us to be unreasonable and arbitrary. For instance, sec. 111, provides that the financial secretary of each camp shall, on or before the 5th day of every month remit the funds of the Sovereign Camp to the secretary of the Society. Sec. 112 provides that if the secretary of the Society fails to receive the remittance before the 15th of the month the local camp and all its members shall stand suspended. Thus the omissions of the financial secretary are made chargeable to each member even though the member has complied with his contract and has promptly paid his dues to the officer authorized to receive them.
Section 63 of the Constitution, Laws and By-Laws, reads in part as follows:
It will be noted from this provision that Mr. Grant had until the last day of each month to pay his dues, and if he paid them on or before the last day of each month he would not become delinquent. If a member failed to pay his dues on or before the last day of each month he became delinquent and was thereby automatically suspended and his certificate became void. One of the issues in this case was whether or not Mr. Grant had paid or had failed to pay the January, 1944, dues on or before the last day of January. The beneficiary contended that this payment had been made on time; while the Society contended that it had not been made until February 21, and therefore he was suspended, and in order for his certificate to again become valid it was necessary that he be reinstated in accordance with the rules and regulations of the Society as expressed in the Constitution, Laws and By-Laws. It was also further contended that one of these requirements is that the person suspended can only become reinstated upon the condition that he is in good health and that he represents that he will remain in good health for thirty days after such attempt to again become a member, and of course, that he will pay up any back dues. This requirement is set forth in section 65.
The jury, from the plaintiff's evidence, could have believed that there was no default in the payment of the premium or dues for January, 1944. The premium receipt book kept by the Financial Secretarydiscloses that $5.32 was paid on January 4, and January 31. It was further testified that two payments were made in January, 1944, one on January 4, and one on January 31, each for $5.32, but the financial secretary says he turned these payments over to the representatives of Mr. Gentry, the former authorized agent, who had died. Mrs. Grant testified that she made the two payments in January and that they were to satisfy the dues for January, 1944. Mrs. Grant further testified that she made two additional payments in February, 1944, and it was conceded by the defendant that at the time of the death of the insured all premiums or dues on the certificate or policy had been paid and were in the hands of the Sovereign Society at its home office in Omaha, Nebraska. The premium or dues for March, 1944, would not have been in default until March 31, and Mr. Grant died on March 26, 1944, five days before that time. Under this evidence the jury could have found that the policy or certificate of insurance was never legally suspended, and therefore no reinstatement of it was necessary; that it remained alive and uninterrupted by any suspension.
If this were the conclusion of the jury, and it readily might have been from the plaintiff's evidence, then the question of whether the defendant waived the provisions of the contract in respect to the prompt payment of premiums became immaterial.
Counsel for the defendant in his zeal most insistently contends, even in the face of the testimony of Mrs. Grant, which evidently was believed by the jury, that the January, 1944, premium was in default and that the policy had lapsed or was suspended. He invokes the by-laws against the reinstatement of Mr. Grant and seeks to make that the determinative issue. He denies that there could have been a waiver because of the lack of knowledge of the defendant. He invokes section 63(a), (b) and (c), sections 64, 65, 68, 82(a) and (b), 83, 107(g) and (h), with which he no doubt is well versed as evidenced by his exhaustive brief on the subject. But even here the plaintiff stands upon solid ground for the questions of suspension, reinstatement, and waiver were submitted to the jury upon comprehensive instructions and upon the conflicting evidence, with the result that these issues have been resolved against the defendant.
Unless we perceive some reversible error of law committed by the trial court we must affirm the judgment.
The case was tried with great care. There was no substantial difference in the evidence at the two trials. The instructions were painstakingly prepared not only by counsel but by the court itself. It granted instructions covering precisely and comprehensively every phase of the case, and the jury's verdict in favor of the plaintiff was approved by the court.
If we ignore the testimony of Mrs. Grant and the other evidence to the effect that she paid the January, 1944, premium, and ignore the finding of the jury on this point and accept the theory of the defendant that the determinative factor is whether the defendant waived the requirements of...
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