Jory v. Supreme Council American Legion of Honor

Citations

• 105 Cal. 20
• 26 L.R.A. 733
• 38 P. 524
• 1894 Cal. LEXIS 1103

Syllabus

<p>Mutual Benefit Society — Change of Beneficiary — Refusal of Dormer Beneficiary to Surrender Certificate.— A beneficiary certificate, issued by a mutual benefit society, was taken out by a mother who was a member of the society, and. made payable upon her death to her daughter, or to any other member of her family whom she might thereafter in her lifetime designate, the by-laws of the society providing that members might, at any time when in good standing, surrender their benefit certificates, and have new ones issued, payable to such beneficiary dependent upon them as they may direct, subject to certain other provisions; and the mother, subsequently desiring to substitute her son for her daughter as beneficiary, attempted to secure control of the original certificate, in the keeping of her daughter, in order to surrender the same, which the daughter refused to permit, and kept and concealed the same until after her mother’s death. The mother being unable to secure and surrender the original certificate, regularly took all the other steps required by the laws of the order to change the beneficiary, and accompanied her application with an affidavit stating why the original certificate was not surrendered, and stating that she made her son her sole beneficiary under the certificate, whereupon the society refused to issue the new certificate upon the ground that the original was not lost or destroyed, and had not been surrendered, but, after the death of the mother, paid the money into court, being satisfied with the court’s adjudication as to whom it belonged. Meld, that whatever . right the society may have had to resist the application as between son and daughter, there was a substitution of beneficiaries in the eyes of a court of equity, and the proceeds of the policy belonged to the son.</p> <p>Id.—Rules as to Change of Beneficiary—Exceptions—Principles of Equity.—The general rule is that a change of a beneficiary in a mutual benefit society cannot be made by th