Case ID: mo-app_72/html/0001-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Ellison, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Phoenix Insurance Company, Appellant, v. William Burkett et al., Ex’rs, Etc., Respondents.
    Kansas City Court of Appeals,
    November 1, 1897.
    Action: bills and notes: peincipal.and asent: voluntary association. Voluntary association for religious and eleemosynary purposes is not an entity capable of making a contract, and its agents creating an obligation against it, as giving a note, become personally liable therefor.
    
      Appeal from the Grundy Circuit Court. — Hon. P. C. Stepp, Judge.
    Reversed and remanded.
    
      HicJdin é Hicldin for appellant.
    (1) An unincorporated religious society can not become indebted as such society. 20 Am. and Eng. Ency. of Law, p. 817. (2) Even if there was anything in the note to show the intention of the makers to bind the church as principal, yet as the church is not a person or a corporation, and could not be held in any way, the makers incurred a personal liability. Fay v. Richmond, 18 Mo. App. 355; Simmons v. R’y, 19 Mo. App. 542; Blakeley v. Bennecke, 59 Mo. 193; Hunt v. Salisbury, 55 Mo. 310; Burton v. Furniture Go., 31 S. W. Rep. 91. Or if they had authority to bind the church,' and had described themselves as agents or trustees in the body of the note, still as they signed their own names they are bound. Overton v. Stevens, 8 Mo. 448; Duncan v. Kirtley,-54 Mo. App. 655, 656; Lapsley v. McKinstry, 38 Mo. 245; Keckv. Brewing Company, 22 Mo. App. 187; Shanks v. The Dispatch Trans. Company, 104 Mo. 531; Burton v. Furniture Co., 31 S. W. Rep. 91; White v. Skinner, 7 Am. Dec. 381; Peoples Bank v. Church, 17 N. E. Rep. 408; Dtisenbury v. Ellis, 2 Am. Dec. 144. (3) Members of voluntary association bind themselves by contract, no matter what understanding was to the contrary. Heath v. Goslin, 80 Mo. 310; Taft v. Brewster, 6 Am. Dec. 280.
    
      O. G. Williams, S. S. Kelso and W. B. Linney for respondents.
    (1) The contention that John Lodge is personally responsible is not sustained by the utterances of our supreme court. Hodges v. Runyan, 30 Mo. 491; Tutt v. Hobbs, 17 Mo. 488; Bushong v. Taylor, 82 Mo. 669.
   Ellison, J.

This action is on a promissory note given to plaintiff by S. J. Relso and John Lodge as premium on a policy of fire insurance issued by plaintiff to the “Trustees of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church.” The face of the note does not disclose what it was given for and it is signed by the ** parties aforesaid individually. It is however agreed that the note was signed by the parties as trustees for the church and that these parties had no further interest in the building than as members of the congregation. It is further agreed that the church is an “unincorporated voluntary association.” Under this state of case the finding below should have been for plaintiff instead of against it.

Giving to the agreement the effect that though the note is signed by the parties as individuals, yet their act in signing was as trustees for the church, yet since the church was an unincorporated voluntary association of people it was not an entity capable of making a contract and did not. make a contract on which, it could dgsued. In other words, if the signers of the note seek to escape liability on the score of agency, they must produce a responsible principal. Heath v. Goslin, 80 Mo. 310; Lapsley v. McKinstry, 38 Mo. 245. “An unincorporated association is no person and has not the power to sue or to be sued. When such an association has been organized and is conducted for profit, it will be treated as a partnership, and its members will be held liable as partners. But in ease of religious and eleemosynary associations the members and managing committees who incur the liability assent to it, or subsequently ratify it, become personally liable.” Burton v. Grand Rapids School Furniture Co. (Court of Civil Appeals, Texas, 1895). The judgment should have been for plaintiff, and not so being, it is reversed and the cause remanded.

All concur.