Case ID: foster_1/html/0333-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Read, C. J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.
    ROBERT J. JONES and EDMUND C. SWIFT, executors of ELIZABETH S. SWIFT, deceased, v. THE BENEFICIAL SOCIETY of the BOROUGH OF EASTON.
    A beneficial society which is sustained by weekly dues paid by its members, and which pays benefits only to such of them as are in good standing, is not an association for charitable uses within the act of April 20th, 1855, and a legacy to lit would not be subject to said act.
    Error to the Court of Common Pleas of Mor'hampton county.
   Opinion delivered May 17, 1873, by

Read, C. J.

The plaintiffs in this case are a beneficial society, both ■in name, and by the provisions of their charter, and their benevolence .and benefits are exclusively confined to contributory members of the association. The members must be regularly admitted, must not be infirm, must be citizens, and between the ages of twenty-one and forty five years-of age; and no person shall be entitled to any benefits from this society, until he shall have been one year a member. Each person on being ad-imitted a member of their society, shall pay such entrance money and ¡monthly dues, and contributions, as the society may by their by-laws from •dime to time declare. A member is not in full standing, if in arrears for 'fines, contributions, or monthly dues; and not entitled to benefits in sickness, if in arrears for dues, contributions, or fines for three successive stated meetings, and may be expelled for arrears of dues or fines. The amount to be paid in case of death of a member or his wife, is fixed. There are other provisions showing that the benevolence is strictly a matter of' contract, and may be enforced in a court of justice. The object of this-society shall be the relief of its respective members, when sick, or disabled by bodily infirmities, to pursue their ordinary avocations. Its benevolence-begins and ends at home. In Babb v. Reed, 5 Rawle, 151, it was held, that an association for the purposes of mutual benevolence among its members only, is not an association for charitable uses. This was a lodge of Odd Fellows. In Blenon’s Estate, Brightly’s Rep., 338, the beneficial societies who were claimants under the will of the testator, as institutions of charity and benevolence, were so considered by the auditors, which decision was reversed by the orphans’ court, who decreed, “That no friendly or beneficial society is entitled to any share in the bequest of the testator,” which decree was affirmed by the supreme court. These decisions are the settled law of this court.

The nth section of the act of 20th April, 1855, P. L. 332, provides that “no estate, real or personal, shall hereafter be bequeathed, devised or conveyed to any body politic, or to any person in trust for religious or charitable uses, except the same be done by deed or will, attested by two credible, and at the time, disinterested witnesses, at least one calendar month before the decease of the testator or alienor, and all disposition of property contrary hereto, shall be void and go to the residuary legatee or devisee, next of kin, or heirs according to law: Provided, That any disposition of property within said period, bona fide made for a fair valuable-consideration, shall not be hereby avoided.”

No case comes within the English statute, of which this section is a copy in principle, unless the gift be for a charitable use and the three-cases which have been decided in this State under our act, were all charitable uses, and one of them also a religious use. Charitable uses are well understood in Pennsylvania, and the general subject has been largely discussed by Mr. Justice Strong in the Domestic and Foreign Missions Appeal, 6 Casey 433; Cresson’s Appeal, Id. 437, and The Evangelical Association’s Appeal, 11 Casey, 316, and clearly fix the meaning of charitable uses in the nth section of the act of 1855.

Mrs. Elizabeth S. Swift made her will on the 22d May, 1872, evincing great care in distributing her property, and recollecting friends by various gifts, and towards the close of it, gives the legacy of “one thousand dollars to go to the Easton Beneficial Society, of which my late-husband was a member,” and died on the 27th of the same month of May.

It is clear this is not a religious use, and it seems equally clear it is not a charitable use; and if so, it is a perfectly valid legacy, and must be paid by the defendants.

Judgment affirmed.