53 Ark. 255 | Ark. | 1890
On the 4th day of September, 1883, the Supreme Lodge of the Knights" of Honor issued to James W. Johnson, a member of DeVall’s Bluff Lodge, No. 2172, a local lodge of the Knights of Honor, located at DeVall’s Bluff in this State, a benefit certificate for the sum of two thousand dollars payable to his'heirs at his death. At that time Johnson was unmarried, and the constitution of the supreme lodge authorized the issuing of a benefit certificate, payable, on the death of a member, to his family or as he might direct. In 1884 the constitution was changed, so as to authorize the issuing of a certificate to a member payable “to some member ■or members of his family, or person or persons dependent on him, as he may direct or designate by name to be paid as provided by general law.” After this, on the 7th of December, 1884, James W. Johnson and Laura A. Johnson, the plaintiff in this action, married, and on the 27th of February, 1886, a child was born to them, who died on the 10th of August of the same year. On the 24th of November following, James W. Johnson died without descendants, leaving Laura A., his widow, and S. W. Pate and O. T. Carr, sisters of the whole blood, and George W. Price and Salvina T. Hurt, half sister and brother, his nearest kindred, surviving him. The beneficiaries named in the certificate of the 4th of September, 1883, were never changed. The supreme lodge has paid the $2,000 into court, and the sisters and half sister and brother, defendants in this action, claiming to be the heirs of Johnson, and Laura A., litigate its disposition.
In Hill's Administrators v. Mitchell, 5 Ark., 618, this court said: “Distribution and dower are two separate and distinct things: one is a lien created by law on the property of the husband at the time of the marriage, which necessarily takes precedence over all other subsequent accruing rights, and attaches to the specific property and is carved out of it. Distribution occurs after administration, and the payment of debts; and the estate is then divided between the heirs or legatees. The widow is not entitled to any portion or distributive share after her dower has been allotted, for all that goes to the heirs or legatees after payment of debts, and the administrator is bound to distribute the residue in his hands. We have no statute giving her any portion of the personal-estate as a distributive share; and that part of the common law which is in force here allows her no such interest in the personal effects of her husband.”
In Illinois a statute was enacted which provides: ‘ ‘When there is a widow or a surviving husband, and also a child or children, or descendants of such child or children of the intestate, the widow or surviving husband shall receive, as his or her absolute personal estate, one-third of all the personal estate of the intestate.” In Gauch v. St. Louis M. L. Ins. Co., 88 Ill., 251, the court held that this statute was not intended to and did not make the widow an heir of her intestate husband, but defined what shall be taken as dower; and held that a policy of life insurance, payable to the “legal heirs” of the person whose life was insured, was payable to his children, if he left any, and that his widow was not included in the words “legal heirs.”
Judgment affirmed.