45 Pa. Super. 409 | Pa. Super. Ct. | 1911
Opinion by
This case arises on a feigned issue formed in an inter-pleader proceeding to determine the title to a fund paid into court by the Penna. R. R. Voluntary Relief Department, after the death of Frederick J. Haller who was a member of that department at the time of his death. The plaintiff was the wife of the member and the defendant was his stepmother. Haller joined the relief department on March 2, 1901, and in his-application for membership appointed his wife the beneficiary in the case of his death. On January 17, 1908, he substituted Mary E. Haller, his stepmother, as beneficiary. This was done under the authority of paragraph 28 of the rules or by-laws of the organization which provides that an applicant may in his principal application or subsequently in the prescribed form designate a beneficiary or beneficiaries who shall upon the approval of the designation by the superintendent of the relief department be entitled to receive his death benefit. The plaintiff claimed the fund on the allegation that when her husband became a member of the association he handed to her the book of rules in which was pasted a certificate of his membership in the association and at the same time said to her: “This is a gift for you. Never part with it or give it to anyone else. That’s yours and you hold it.” The defendant’s claim is based on the fact
But there is a radical objection to the plaintiff’s claim irrespective of the verdict. What she says her husband gave her was merely the evidence which he held that he was a member of the association. No consideration passed from her to him and there was no contractual relation between him and her nor between her and the relief department. The possession of the book of rules gave her no right which she would not have had without it. If no change of beneficiary had been made she would have been entitled to the fund on the death of her husband but this was not because of any consideration moving from her but because of the nomination made by her husband when he became a member of the department. His wife did not by the fact of such designation acquire a vested absolute property in the benefit. During the lifetime of a member of a beneficial association the beneficiary named by him is a mere volunteer with an expectancy contingent on the death of the member and subject to the possibility that another beneficiary may be named where such change is permitted by the laws of the society. His right to the proceeds of the certificate or
We need not consider the assignments, thirty in number, in detail. Many of them relate to the trial and others to the opinion of the learned trial judge in entering judgment for the defendant. The view we have taken is a determination that on the case as presented by the plaintiff the defendant was entitled to a verdict.
The judgment is affirmed.