Caldwell v. Modern Woodmen

Citations

• 89 Kan. 11
• 130 P. 642
• 1913 Kan. LEXIS 4

Syllabus

<p>syllabus BY THE COURT.</p> <p>1. Fraternal Insurance — Disappearance of Insured — Pre- ' sumptions. The principles pertaining to presumptions in. cases of the disappearance and unexplained absence for seven years of a member of a fraternal order, stated in Modern Woodmen v. Gerdom, 72 Kan. 391, 82 Pac. 1100, and 77 Kan.. 401, 94 Pac. 788, are followed.</p> <p>2. -Diligence in Making Inquiry for Assured. A member of a fraternal order holding a beneficiary certificate left his . home and family in this state, declaring his intention to go to-California to find a new location, where his family should join him later. Letters were received by his wife at frequent intervals covering a period of five or six months, purporting to have been written by him at different places in California. The last of these letters, save one, was mailed at Stockton, Cal., and gave the information that the writer was sick with smallpox in a pesthouse there. About ten days later the-last letter was received, saying that he had suffered a relapse and was still in the pesthouse. Afterwards his wife wrote several letters addressed to him at Stockton, but hearing nothing further from him, on November 2, 1902, inquired by letter of the postmaster at Stockton, and was informed that her letters had not been delivered. She then wrote for information to the mayor and also to the chief of police of that, city; made inquiries of officers and members of the local camp of which her husband was a member, and of his father, brothers and sister, residing at various places in and out of the state; engaged attorneys, who published a notice in a newspaper at Stockton of his confinement in the pesthouse and disappearance, and through an officer of the local camp caused a like notice to be published in the official paper of the order, but obtained no tidings of her missing husband from these or any other source of information. After he had been absent for a considerable time she had a personal interview with th