158 Mo. App. 234 | Mo. Ct. App. | 1911
This is a suit on a certificate of life insurance. On motion, the court gave judgment for plaintiff notwithstanding defendant's answer, as though none of the matters pleaded therein constituted a defense to the action, and from this judgment defendant prosecutes the appeal.
Defendant is a mutual benefit society organized and existing under the laws of the State of Illinois and as such is engaged in the business of life insurance therein, as well as in Missouri, under the laws of which latter state it has duly qualified. Plaintiff, the widow of Thomas W. Kavanaugh, is the beneficiary in a certificate of life insurance issued by defendant to her husband September 24, 1895, whereby defendant insured the life of Thomas W. Kavanaugh in her favor in the amount of four thousand dollars. Plaintiff’s husband having departed this life August 29, 1905, this suit was instituted on the certificate of insurance, to the end of collecting the same. The petition is in the usual form with the certificate itself annexed thereto as an .exhibit. As the court sustained a motion for judgment on defendant’s answer and gave judgment
“No member, whether admitted heretofore or hereafter, shall die by his own act or hand, sane or insane; and if any member whether admitted heretofore or hereafter shall die by his own act or hand, sane or insane, such death shall forfeit all rights and claims to the amount agreed to be'paid on his death and specified in the benefit certificate of such member, and his beneficiary or beneficiaries shall receive and be paid in lieu thereof a sum equal to the total amount actually paid by such members to the widows’ and orphans’ benefit fund of the order.”
As before stated, it is averred in the answer that defendant is an Illinois corporation organized and existing under the laws of that state, though duly qualified to do business in Missouri as well, and that it keeps and maintains its chief office in the city of Chicago, Illinois, where the contract of insurance was entered into in September, 1895; that Thomas W. Kavanaugh, the insured, was a citizen and resident of the State of Illinois at the time of contracting the insurance and at such time became a member of defendt ant’s Lake Shore Council, No. 59 in that state, to which he paid all of the dues and assessments in pert forming the contract on his part; that the contract .of insurance between the parties was to be perforpie.d in the State of Illinois, and that the insured, Ka/yaT naugh, continued to reside therein .to the time of his death, where he paid all of his dues and assessments, and that his wife, plaintiff, resided in said state duping all the time, resided there at the time of the deatla of the insured and continues to reside there even noy:, but prosecutes this suit on the certificate in Missouri
The motion for judgment on the answer, interposed by plaintiff and which was sustained by the court, operates in the nature of a demurrer and admits the truth of all facts well pleaded in the answer, and the matter must be determined here as though such facts are conceded to be true. By sustaining the motion and giving judgment for plaintiff for the full amount of four thousand dollars stipulated in the face of the certificate and interest thereon, notwithstanding the subsequently enacted by-law on suicide which was in force and effect more than a month before the death of the insured, the court essentially applied the rule óf decision which obtains in this state to 'such matters
Aside from any statute on the subject, under the common law, as interpreted and declared by the Supreme Court of the State of Illinois, it is competent for a mutual benefit society, under such a general stipulation as is found in the application for and the certificate of insurance in this case, to change the amount of indemnity originally granted, or abrogate it entirely for that matter, by the provisions of a subsequent by-law enacted against the suicide of the member. In that state, where the member agrees iñ his application and by accepting the certificate thereunder, as here, to comply with future laws and regulations of the order and that the indemnity fund provided for shall be governed thereby, the courts universally not only sustain the contract as a valid one but construe and declare its legal effect to be such as abundantly authorizes the enactment of a future bylaw against the suicide of the member, prescribing a reduction or an entire destruction of the benefit in the event death ensues from that cause. Decisions of the Supreme and Appellate Courts of Illinois, pleaded in defendant’s answer, which so construe and declare the legal effect of such contracts are as follows: Scow v. Sup. Council, etc., 223 Ill. 32; Fullenwider v. Sup.
But it is suggested that as it appears from the answer defendant is qualified to do business in this state and that it issues insurance certificates to its members throughout the country the contract should be considered' as though the parties contemplated per
It is no doubt true that if the parties provide in a contract the law of some other country shall control the matter of its performance, such law will prevail, unless it be a mere sham to avoid usury or something of'that character, and it is likewise true if it be con
The judgment should be reversed and the cause remanded for further .proceedings. It is so ordered.