Messenheimer v. Fraternal Aid Union

Citations

• 103 Kan. 552
• 175 P. 679
• 1918 Kan. LEXIS 318

Syllabus

<p>SYLLABUS BY THE COURT.</p> <p>1. Fraternal Insurance — Provision in Certificate for Payments to Member on Reaching a Certain Age Void. An incorporated mutual benefit society which under its charter has no power to obligate itself to pay a certain sum to its members on their reaching seventy years of ag’e, cannot accomplish the same result by the device of issuing a certificate promising to pay that amount to a member in case of his total disability, and adopting a by-law providing that members on reaching that age shall be considered totally disabled.</p> <p>2. Same — Power of Benefit Society to Change fits By-laws. Where a certificate issued by a mutual benefit association includes a provision that it is liable to forfeiture if the member shall not comply with “such by-laws as are or may be adopted,!’ and the application for membership includes an agreement that the certificate shall be void if the member shall fail to comply with the laws of the association then in force or thereafter adopted, the association has the same power to change its rules as is conferred by the ordinary agreement of the applicant to be bound by subsequently adopted regulations.</p> <p>3. Same — Statutory Provisions — Give No Authority to Malee Payments on Member Reaching Certain Age. A statute empowering certain associations “to make insurance on the lives of individuals, and against personal injury, disablement or death .resulting from injury,” and forbidding them “to contract the payment of endowments, annuities, or anything of value to the member himself, except for injury or disablement,” does not authorize them to undertake to make payments because of the insured having reached a certain age.</p>