Case ID: misc_14/html/0010-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Giegerich, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Roman Syuchar, Respondent, v. The Workingmen’s Co-operative Association, Appellant.
    (New York Common Pleas
    Additional General Term,
    August, 1895.)
    The constitution of a benefit society controls and forms an integral part-of its contracts with its members, and is competent evidence in an. action upon a certificate' or policy, although it was not printed and. distributed to the members, where it is shown that it was accessible to-them. . - ' ‘
    
      Appeal by the defendant from a judgment of the District Court in. the city of Eew York for the sixth judicial district, rendered by the justice . thereof, without a jury, in favor of the plaintiff.
    
      W. B. Bonihee, for appellant.
    
      Horace O. Shelby, for respondent.
   Giegerich, J.

Without touching upon the other points in the case, we find it necessary to reverse this judgment for error in the exclusion of evidence offered by the defendant.

The action was brought upon a contract of insurance against disability occasioned through sickness, by the terms of which the defendant, a benevolent society, agreed to pay certain sums to the plaintiff, one of its members, should he become disabled under the circumstances specified.

Upon the issue of notice and proof of claim the defendant offered in evidence a document, which, according to the uncontradicted testimony of the defendant’s secretary, was the original constitution of the association, sealed with its seal and signed by its president and secretary. Also, from the proof adduced as foundation for the offer, it appeared that access to this purported constitution was accorded the members of the society at its office, but that it did not exist in printed form.

The justice below refused to receive the document in evidence, under exception, and this ruling we must hold to have been erroneous.

Eelevant and material the evidence' certainly was. Even without intrinsic reference to the constitution made in the policy of insurance, such instrument, if shown to be in existence, controls, may supplement and is presumed to be understood as an integral part of the contract itself when made between a benevolent institution and its member. Supreme Commandery v. Ainsworth, 46 Am. Rep. 332; May Ins. § 552 ; Niblack Ben. Soc. § 166. But here there was a direct reference to the constitution in the policy.

■_ As. to competency, the uncontradicted testimony of the ' defendant’s secretary, noted above, furnished,ample .foundation in support of the evidence offered.. .That th¿ constitution was hot printed and distributed to the members does not, in. so.far as we. are advised, have bearing' upon the controlling force of that instrument. Its existence being proven; as'we have said, the members are presumed to be cognizant of its terms. -By the record this presumption not' only is- unrequited, but is materially strengthened through proof that the .constitution was always accessible to defendant’s members, and so to the-plaintiff.

For these reasons the judgment should be reversed and a .new trial ordered, with costs to the appellant to abide the . ■event. / - -,.

■ Bischoff,. J., concurs.

Judgment reversed and new trial ordered, with costs- to appellant to abide event. . .