154 Iowa 615 | Iowa | 1912
This is a suit on a benefit certificate issued to Lewis Collver May 16, 1906. He died in October, 1908. The evidence tended to show that Collver was intoxicated when he died and that his intoxication was the cause of his death. The defendant’s answer alleged as complete defenses that Collver became intemperate in the use of intoxicating liquor after the certificate had been issued to him; that his death resulted indirectly from his intemperate use of intoxicating liquor; and that there were breaches of warranties made in Collver’s application. In her reply the plaintiff denied generally anl alleged that the defendant knew of the habits of Collver with respect to the use of intoxicating liquor and that with such notice the defendant collected dues and assessments from him, and by so doing waived objection to’ his use of intoxicating liquor. Section 14 of the appellant’s by-laws is as follows: “If any member of this society, heretofore or hereafter adopted, shall become intemperate in the use of intoxicating liquors or in the use of drqgs or narcotics or if his death shall result directly or indirectly from his intemperate use of intoxicating liquors, drugs or narcotics, then the benefit certificate held by said Neighbor shall by such acts become and be absolutely null and void, and all payments made thereon, shall be thereby forfeited.” Section 5 of the benefit certificate also provides that it shall become absolutely null and void if the member become intemperate in the use of intoxicating liquor,, or if his death shall
In his application for membership, Collver stated that he was a total abstainer from the use of intoxicating liquor; that he had been a total abstainer for four years; and that he had not been intoxicated for four years. He warranted his answers to be literally true, and agreed that if any answer was not literally true the certificate should be void. The certificate issued to Collver was also signed by him and it provided on the same subject as follows: “This benefit certificate is issued and accepted only upon the following express warranties, conditions and agreements: That the application for membership in this society made by said member, a copy of which is hereto attached and made a part hereof, ... is true in all respects, and that the literal truth of such application and each and every part thereof shall be held to be a strict warranty and to form the only basis of the liability of this society to such member and to his beneficiary. . . . That if said application shall not be literally true in each and every part thereof, then this benefit certificate shall . . . be absolutely void.”
The uncontradicted evidence shows that Collver was intoxicated in July, 1904, less than two years before the application was made and the certificate issued, and the appellant claims that the statements by Collver that he abstained entirely from the use of intoxicating liquor and had so abstained from its use for four years was false and
The by-laws in force when the insured became a member provided as follows: “No local camp nor any officer thereof shall have the right or power to waive any of the provisions of the by-laws of this society. The clerk of a local camp is hereby made and declared to be the agept of such camp, and not the agent of the head camp, and no act or omission on his part shall have the effect of creating a liability on the part of this society or of waiving any right or immunity belonging to it.”
Does the stipulation that the clerk of the local camp shall be the agent of said camp only, and not the agent of the head camp, relieve the defendant from the consequences ordinarily following knowledge on the part of the local camp? We are of the opinion that this question must be answered in the negative. The defendant is an insurance order, consisting wholly of local camps." Its membership is obtained solely and entirely through these local camps, or lodges, and the defendant itself is only the instrument through which its constituent members are enabled to cooperate for the common good. The. local lodge is the working arm of the organization, and through oit alone does the member ever come into touch with the order at large. It selects the membership of the order and, in a sense,
That in organizations of this kind the local camps or lodges and their officers are the agents of the central body is well settled by this and other courts. Alexander v. Grand Lodge, supra; Trotter v. Grand Lodge, supra; Bailey v. Association, 71 Iowa, 689; Tobin v. Aid Society, 72 Iowa, 262; Ancient Order v. Drake, 66 Kan. 538 (72 Pac. 239); Supreme Lodge v. Withers, supra; 3 Colley’s Briefs, 2373.
In Pringle v. Modern Woodmen, 76 Neb. 384 (107 N. W. 756), the contract provided that it should become void if the member was thereafter convicted of a felony. A member was so convicted; but, after arrest and before conviction, he deposited with the clerk of the local camp a sum of money to be applied on future assessments. The fact of his conviction was known to the local camp and its officers, but, notwithstanding this, they forwarded the assessments to the head camp, where the money was retained by
We reach the conclusion that the defendant waived the conditions of the certificate, relative to Collver’s use of intoxicating liquor, after its issue. For the reasons already stated, however, the case must be reversed, and it is so ordered. — Reversed.