147 Iowa 656 | Iowa | 1910
The defendant is a stipulated premium accident insurance association, which provides in its certificates for the payment by members of quarterly assessments of fixed amounts, and agrees that out of the benefit fund thus created it will pay stipulated sums on account of accidental death and weekly benefits for certain specified accidental injuries not resulting in death. In May, 1908, on the application of G. G. Oliphant, it issued to him a certificate or socalled policy, the first three paragraphs of which were as follows:
In consideration of the representations, agreements, and warranties contained in the application for this insurance, the payment of the certificate and membership fees of two dollars, and the further payment of three dollars quarterly in advance as agreed upon in application, the association does hereby accept Grant G. Oliphant of Des Moines, Iowá, for one year or more, hereinafter called the assured, under classification A, an insurance solicitor by occupation, and subject to all provisions and conditions herein contained or indorsed hereon, will pay the assured the following benefits during the time this contract is maintained in continuance, force and effect, viz.:
*658 Eirst. Should the assured receive external visible bodily injury while this certificate is in full force solely through external, violent, and. accidental means, causing death within three months from date of accident, the association will pay to the beneficiary hereinafter named if surviving, otherwise to the executors, administrators or legal representatives of the assured one thousand dollars, in monthly installments of one hundred dollars at the option of the association. The above amount in place of all other, benefits. In case of death by accident the beneficiary shall be (full name) Oastle Memorial H. H Church, Relationship --- Address E. 11 & Maple Sts.
Second. At the rate of twenty-five dollars per week during period of total disability, should aforesaid assured receive external .visible bodily injury while this certificate is in full force, solely through external, violent, accidental and involuntary means’ other than such as shall result fatally, or in the loss of one or both hands, or feet, or both eyes, which shall independently' of all other causes immediately following the receipt thereof, totally and continuously disable assured from performing any and every kind of labor or business, provided the period of indemnity shall not exceed twelve consecutive months.
In succeeding paragraphs there are other provisions as to benefits to be paid to the assured on account of total or partial disability, but they are not material for the determination of the questions presented.
In August following the issuance of this certificate, the said G. G. Oliphant met his death by being shot by some person unknown, and his administrator instituted action to recover the amount specified by the policy to be payable to the beneficiary named therein on account of accidental death. The defendant by demurrer to the petition which with amendments set out the facts above stated insisted that the beneficiary named in the certificate or policy was not such beneficiary as might under the statute be designated, and that by a statutory provision the policy was void. The statutory provision thus relied upon is as follows: “No association organized or operating under
For present purposes we may concede that, if the Castle Memorial Church were the only persons named in the policy to whom according to its terms any benefit would become payable on the happening of any of the conditions named in the policy, then such policy would be void for the reason that the beneficiary named is not one of the persons for whose benefit such an association as the defendant may issue a certificate to a member, and the statute expressly declares that any certificate issued in violation of such restriction as to beneficiaries shall be void. For instance, if the defendant association had been authorized to issue life policies and had issued such a policy to Oliphant solely payable to the Castle Memorial Church, it may be conceded that neither the. church nor th.e adminstrator of the estate of Oliphant could recover thereunder on his death, and that the fact of receipt by the defendant association of the premiums or dues made payable by the assured would not estop it from interposing the defense. These concessions are made in view of the conclusions reached on another view of the case which seems not to have been considered by the trial judge in the opinion filed by him in the lower court sustaining the demurrer.
We reach the conclusion, therefore, that the issuance of the certificate in this case was not' prohibited by Code, section 1789, and that as the beneficiary named as the person to whom the death benefit was made payable was not qualified to receive such benefit, the administrator of ’the estate of the deceased member was entitled to recover, especially in view of the general provision of the certificate that the benefits were payable to the assured, and the special provision that, if the beneficiary named should not survive, the death benefit should be payable to the administrator of the assured.
These considerations impel us to the conclusion that the trial court erred in sustaining defendant’s demurrer to the petition, and that the judgment for defendant was erroneous.
The judgment is therefore reversed.