367 Pa. 273 | Pa. | 1951
Opinion by
The decision of this controversy depends on the interpretation of a by-law of the City of Philadelphia Police Pension Fund Association.
Martin Diskin was a member of that Association for a long period of years during the course of which
On April 30, 1948 Diskin resigned from the Police Department because of poor health and applied to the Association for a pension. His application was approved May 12, 1948, and on June 1, 1948 the Association mailed to him its check of that date in the sum of $111.05 for his first month’s pension. Diskin never endorsed, cashed or negotiated this cheek. He died on June 27, 1948. On October 1, 1948 the Association stopped payment on the check, the assistant secretary
It is elementary law that, where a note, draft or check is received by a creditor from his debtor for an existing debt, the presumption is, in the absence of an agreement to the contrary, that it is received as conditional and not absolute payment, and the burden of proving the existence of such an agreement is upon the debtor. This is conceded by the defendant Association but it contends that an agreement to the contrary did exist because Article X, Section 7, of the by-laws provided that “Payments of pensions shall be by check drawn to the order of the pensioner, but the Board of Directors shall have the power to permit the payment to an attorney-in-fact.” The Superior Court held that, since the by-laws of an association constitute a compact between the members, and the law by which they are to be governed, the provision that payments of pensions should be by cheek bound both Diskin and his designated beneficiaries, and that, therefore, when the check of June 1, 1948 was received by Diskin, pay
We are not in accord with the construction thus placed upon the by-law in question. We interpret its provision merely to mean that a check in payment of a pension should be drawn to the order of the pensioner and not to any attorney-in-fact except by permission of the Board of Directors, — in other words, that it was intended as nothing more than a directive to the treasurer as to how such checks were to be drawn. Similar provisions are common not only in the by-laws of corporations and associations but in statutes as well, their purpose being to provide the manner in which payments out of the funds of the organization or out of the treasury of the government should be made, — how checks should be executed, by whom, and to whom made payable. For example, the Act of August 17,1912, ch. 301, §3, 37 Stat. 312, as amended, 38 U. S. C. A. §50, provides that “Pensions . . . shall be paid by checks drawn, pursuant to certification by the Administrator of Veterans’ Affairs, by the Division of Disbursement of the Treasury Department in such form as to protect the United States against loss, .... Such checks shall be transmitted by mail to the payee thereof at his last-known address,. ..” Under an earlier statute which provided that the agent for the payment of pensions should draw his check on the proper assistant treasurer or designated depositary of the United States for the amount due the pensioner, payable to his order, and transmit the same by mail directed to the address of the pensioner entitled thereto, the then Attorney General of the United States, was asked by the Secretary of the Interior whether, where a check had been thus transmitted by a pension agent through the mails to a pensioner and received by him, and thereafter the pensioner died without' having negotiated or cashed the cheek, payment was. thereby completed
Even were it to be conceded that the provision in the by-laws that payments of pensions should be by checks, drawn as there prescribed, is susceptible of two different interpretations, — either that it constitutes a binding agreement on the part of pensioners to accept checks as absolute payment, or that it is merely a direction to the Association’s treasurer as to how checks in payment of pensions should be drawn, — the construction most favorable to the pensioner and his beneficiaries must be the one adopted: Sokolowski v. Mickiewicz, 92 Pa. Superior Ct. 247; Matura v. United Societies of Greek Catholic Religion of the U. S. A., 128 Pa. Superior Ct. 365, 370, 194 A. 341, 343; Reid v. Sovereign Camp of the Woodmen of the World, 139 Pa. Superior Ct. 492, 496, 12 A. 2d 498, 499 (aff. 340 Pa. 400, 17 A. 2d 890); Slanina v. Greek Catholic Union of Russian Brotherhoods of U. S. A., 153 Pa. Superior Ct. 298, 302, 33 A. 2d 807, 809, 810; Caputo, Admrx., v. Societa’ Italiana Vittorio Emanuele III Principe Di Napoli, 159 Pa. Superior Ct. 312, 48 A. 2d 14. .
■ If, therefore, as we now hold, Diskin’s receipt' of the check of June .1, .1948 did not constitute légal. pay-.
The judgment of the Superior Court is reversed and the judgment entered by the Court of Common Pleas No. 7 of Philadelphia County is herewith reinstated.