Woodson v. Colored Grand Lodge of Knights of Honor of America

• Decision Date: 30 May 1910
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: MARY WARREN WOODSON v. COLORED GRAND LODGE OF KNIGHTS OF HONOR OF AMERICA ET AL

52 So. 457

97 Miss. 210

MARY WARREN WOODSON v. COLORED GRAND LODGE OF KNIGHTS OF HONOR OF AMERICA ET AL

Supreme Court of Mississippi

May 30, 1910

March 1910

FROM the chancery court of Warren county, HON. JAMES STOWERS HICKS, Chancellor.

Mary Warren Woodson, appellant, was complainant in the court below; the grand lodge, and Mary Webster Woodson, appellees were defendants there. From a decree partly favorable and partly unfavorable to complainant she appealed to the supreme court, and Mary Webster Woodson, one of the defendants prosecuted a cross-appeal. The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.

Reversed on cross-appeal.

Henry Fox & Canizaro, for appellant and cross-appellee.

The chancellor found as a matter of fact that the marriage relation existing between Thomas Woodson and complainant, Mary Warren Woodson, was never dissolved, and that she was his legal wife at the time of his death, and in accord with his feeling, he gave complainant a decree for $ 250, the amount which had not been paid by the lodge.

The records of Warren county show affirmatively that no divorce was ever had between Thomas Woodson and complainant herein, in Warren county, although Woodson resided in Warren county all his life. The evidence of complainant shows that she never brought suit for divorce anywhere, nor had she been served with any process for divorce. The evidence in this case also shows and is undisputed, that Thomas Woodson and Mary Warren Woodson, complainant, met each and every year, from the time of the separation up to the time of his death, and there was never an intimation of divorce between the parties, and no suit for divorce was ever instituted.

The case of Alabama, etc., Ry. Co. v. Beardsley, 79 Miss. 417, 30 So. 660, is the leading case on the subject under discussion and all that is held in the case, is that the party assailing the second marriage must prove that the first marriage was not dissolved. But after all, this is merely a presumption and when the proof is adduced sufficient to rebut that presumption, as in this case, then the first marriage is valid, and the second marriage void.

In Colored Knights of Pythias v. Tucker, 92 Miss. 505, 46 So. 51, Justice MAYES speaking for the court says, in speaking of this presumption: "But after all it is but a presumption of law, not conclusive, and therefore capable of being overcome by such testimony as satisfies the minds of the jury, that there is no valid marriage. With strong presumption raised by the law in favor of the validity of marriage, an alleged marriage is not to be declared invalid, except upon the clearest and strongest proof, but when competent evidence has been submitted going to disprove marriage, the weight and sufficiency of that marriage evidence, is a matter for the jury."

The court in the case at bar, sitting as a jury finds that the testimony adduced by complainant was sufficient to satisfy his mind and overthrow the presumption that the marriage had been dissolved.

If, as it is shown here, there had been no divorce between complainant and deceased prior to 1888, when deceased attempt to marry Mary Webster, such a second marriage is null and void, and being void, in its inception or abinitio, no decree is necessary to avoid it and it cannot be made valid by subsequent ratification of the parties.

The law of the order made it imperative upon the part of the officer who pays the money to pay to the widow or other heirs with no discretion whatsoever, left to the officer, to the lodge or to the member. And it further made it the duty of the grand dictator and reporter to see that the money was paid to the class mentioned in the by-laws. The policy itself does not change our contention, for the defendant, by the terms of said policy, also bound itself to pay to the heirs and lawful representatives of Woodson.

The payment by the lodge to Mary Webster was, and is not in accord with the by-laws of the defendant order, and therefore cannot be said to discharge defendant's obligation to complainant. Nor can defendant be heard to say, in the face of their by-laws, and of the law of this state, what may have been the intention of Woodson. Neither the society, nor the member, nor the two combined, had any power to issue certificates not in clear accord with the by-laws, nor to pay or divert the funds from the class prescribed in said by-laws.

Both defendants in this case were estopped to deny the provisions of the by-laws that the money is only payable to the widow and other heirs of Woodson. The society is bound by the by-laws and Mary Webster is charged with a notice of the by-laws and the statute governing fraternal orders. Rose v. Wilkins, 78 Miss. 401; Woodmen v. Woodruff, 80 Miss. 546; Carson v. Bank, 75 Miss. 167.

Anderson & Vollor, for appellee and cross-appellant Mary Webster Woodson.

There was a time extending over a period of nineteen and a half years from the date of the second marriage of Woodson to Mary Webster to the date of his death, when the complainant by every rule of law, equity and justice was called upon to speak out as to the relationship between herself and Woodson and also as to the illegality of the relationship claimed by her to be existing between him and Mary Webster; she was in duty bound to protest against, object to, and remonstrate with her husband and the woman with whom he was living and claiming to be his wife, in regard to the meretricious relations she claimed were being kept up between them. Because she kept silent along that line, she suffered and permitted an innocent woman to believe that she was the lawful wife of the legal husband of this complainant, and she suffered and permitted them in that unlawful and criminal relation to bring into the world eight innocent children to suffer the odium for all time to come, of illegitimacy; and she suffered and permitted, by reason of that fact,...