Meyer v. American Star Order — 18 N.Y. St. Rep. 832

Majority

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Bernhard Meyer, Pl’ff, v. The American Star Order, Def't.

(City Court of New York, Trial Term,

Filed November, 1888.)

Headnote

Benevolent society—Effect of withdrawal card on membership.

A member who demands and accepts from his lodge a withdrawal card, severs his relations therewith, and, until he affiliates with some other lodge of the order, his rights and duties are suspended. He is not during the suspension liable to the order for dues or assessments, nor is it liable to him for benefits.

The defendant is a benevolent • society, incorporated under our laws, having subordinate lodges throughout the state. The plaintiff, on September Y, 1886, became a member of “ Wolf Krengel Lodge, No. 26,” one of the subordinate lodges of the order. That lodge had no by-laws of its own, and worked under the constitution of the grand lodge, which provides that, at the death of a member of the order, his widow or legal representatives shall receive a specified sum as an insurance benefit, and that upon the death of a wife of a “financial member” of the order, the sum of $500 shall be paid to her husband.

On June 19, 1888, the plaintiff demanded and received from the “Wolf Krengel Lodge ” a withdrawal card, having satisfied all his indebtedness to it up to that time. He was then a financial member of the defendant’s order in good standing. On June 21, 1888, the plaintiff, acting on his withdrawal card, applied for admission as a member of the “James A. Garfield Lodge” of the order, and was rejected. On June 2Y, 1888, he made a similar application to the “ King David Lodge ” of the order, with like result.

On June "30, 1888, the plaintiff’s wife died, and the present action is brought to recover the $500 payable at her death.

The question presented is whether, in view of the with

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drawal card issued on June 19, 1888, the plaintiff was a “financial member” of the defendant’s order on June 30, when the plaintiff’s wife died.

Charles Steekler, for pl’ff ; A. P. Wagener, for def’t.

The lodge, subordinate, grand and supreme, is but one organization or order, although the mode of admission and expulsion may vary in the different degrees and be different in form and results. A candidate must get into the order through some subordinate lodge, and through this he may obtain position and promotion, but he generally gets out of each grade through the door that lets him in. If he becomes a member of the order because of his admission into membership in the subordinate lodge, it follows, as a necessary sequence, that he ceases to be a member of the order (for the time being) if suspended or expelled therefrom by the action of that lodge.

The delivery and acceptance of the withdrawal card is, as its name indicates, a severance, by mutual consent, of the relations previously existing between the plaintiff and the “Wolf Krengel Lodge.” In other words, the plaintiff, by mutual consent, withdrew, retired from and quit the lodge to which he belonged, and, in consequence, ceased to be a financial member of it. It could no longer exact from him dues or assessments for future expenses or contingencies, and he, on the other hand, could not claim from it, or the order of which it formed a component part, any future benefits that belong to membership in the order. The burdens incident to membership were to form the fund from which the benefits were to be derived. The one was to compensate the other. By the delivery and acceptance of the withdrawal card, the plaintiff ceased to be an active or financial and became a nominal or inert member, one possessing no voice, power or influence,in the management of the lodge from which he retired. Its future success or misfortunes no longer concerned him in a financial sense. It could not call on him to make good its losses, nor could he call upon it to repair his. The plaintiff’s retirement carried nothing with it, except that which his withdrawal card certified, to wit: that he had left his lodge in good standing, and was worthy of acceptance in any other lodge of the order willing to accept him into membership. The plaintiff acted upon this understanding of his rights when he applied for admission in the two other lodges of the order which rejected him. They were under no obligation to receive him, and the fact that they did not, gives him no lawful cause of complaint against the defendant,. for no lodge guarantees a retiring member that his withdrawal card will admit him to membership_ in any other lodge of the order to which he seeks admission. Every lodge must determine for itself who it

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will accept into membership as companions and brothers, and this is supposed to be known to every one who accepts a withdrawal card, and the retiring member assumes all the risks consequent upon his retirement. True, the plaintiff retained a- nominal membership in the order, but it was titular only, and, until he affiliated with some subordinate lodge, the withdrawal card, by his own act, suspended- Ms rights and duties in the order in respect to all financial obligations and benefits. Until affiliation, his right of membership was inchoate only, a sort of jus precarium, without energy or vitality, being dependent upon the future favorable action of some other subordinate lodge to give it efficacy and call it into life. The plaintiff, having retired from membership in the defendant’s order on June 19, 1888, and his wife having died June 30, 1888, following, the plaintiff was not, at the time of her death, a member of the defendant’s order in good standing within the proper interpretation of that term, and did not become entitled to the benefits payable to a financial member upon the death of his wife. It follows that the defendant is entitled to judgment, with, costs.