212 Mass. 224 | Mass. | 1912
The findings made by the single justice were well warranted and cannot be reversed. The case must be decided upon those findings.
The benefit certificate taken by Merritt B. Crane in the defendant order could not have been made payable to the plaintiff, who came within none of the classes named in the statute or in the “general laws” of the order. R L. c. 119, § 6. Massachusetts
The real claim of the plaintiff is against the last named defendant, upon the ground that a trust has been created in the plaintiff’s favor and impressed upon the proceeds of the certificate, by which the beneficiary of the certificate is bound to receive and hold its proceeds for the benefit of the plaintiff and to turn them at once over to him. To create such a trust and to bind the beneficiary to the performance thereof, the insured member delivered the certificate to the plaintiff, and arranged that the latter should pay the assessments to become due thereon and also make a small monthly payment to. the member himself. The member also informed the beneficiary John W. Crane of this his desire, of his arrangement with the plaintiff, and of his wish that John should pay the proceeds of the certificate, when collected, to the plaintiff. John orally assented to this. A written memorandum was also prepared and signed by the insured member, his wife and his nearest blood relations, and by John, the beneficiary. And the single justice has found that this beneficiary “understood that he was not to receive the proceeds for his own use,” but that he "agreed to collect and hold the proceeds for the use of the plaintiff.” Unless this arrangement and the trust which resulted there
But it is claimed that there was no valid consideration for this promise and the trust which resulted therefrom. This position however is sufficiently answered by what has been said. The beneficiary retained his position by reason of his undertaking, and that was consideration enough. As in the cases already referred to, it would be a fraud for him to receive and apply to his own use the proceeds which he has been enabled to obtain only by means of his promise to pay them to the plaintiff.
It is said that the interests both of the insured member and of this beneficiary were merely contingent and not actually vested rights of property in an existing fund. That is true. The amount of the benefit might never be realized at all. If it were to be realized, yet the member had no other interest therein than the bare power to appoint some person of a limited class to receive the fund if and when it should become due and payable. The beneficiary had no other interest than a mere expectancy dependent
This disposition cannot be avoided on the ground that it was merely testamentary. Kendrick v. Ray, 173 Mass. 305.
The trust was sufficiently executed by the delivery of the certificate to the plaintiff and the promise of the beneficiary to pay the prospective fund to the plaintiff upon its receipt. No doubt all this rested upon a merely contingent foundation and might have been avoided by the member in his lifetime, through the appointment of a new beneficiary; but this was not done, and the rights of these parties are not now affected by that past contingency.
It is a more difficult question whether by the means here presented the benefit of the certificate can be secured to one who is not a member of the class described in the statute already quoted and in the rules of the defendant order. If the plaintiff claimed merely under the insured member, he could not maintain his claim. It is said that to permit him now to recover would be to allow that to be done by indirection which could not be done directly, and thus to frustrate both the legislative will and the intention of the parties to the contract. On this reasoning it was held in another State that an assignment of such a certificate made by the beneficiary thereof in the lifetime of the insured member and joined in by the latter was invalid. Rose v. Wilkins, 78 Miss. 401. It may be granted that a beneficiary association could not be required to make payment to any other persons than
The beneficiary cannot indeed make a valid assignment of his expectant interest to one not within the limited classes; but as soon as his right has vested and become absolute, it is his property and he may dispose of it at his will. We see no reason why he may
What has been said disposes also of the objection that this is an illegal result, an evasion of the statute. It has been found that the parties had no intention to evade the statutes of the Commonwealth or the “laws” of the defendant order. Nor does the accomplishment of their purpose have that effect. The payment of the benefit to the beneficiary is not to be interfered with. The property in that benefit, as between the order and the beneficiary, vests absolutely in the latter. The order is not concerned with the disposition which he may make of it. But it would be grossly inequitable to allow him to set up the legal title which he has acquired, as a means of evading the execution of the trust which he has assumed and by means of which he obtained both his expectant right and his absolute title.
The decree appealed from must be modified by providing that upon the surrender of the certificate the defendant order shall pay the amount thereof to the defendant John W. Crane, and that he shall forthwith pay the same to the plaintiff. The plaintiff should have also costs against the last named defendant.
So ordered.