Court Opinion

ID: 9829221
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 19:06:26.246273+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:58.561355
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
Appellant, in the argument appended to its motion for rehearing, among other things, says:
“We shall not at any length, argue this case, for in our brief, and in our reply to appellant’s brief, we discuss the case very fully. There is one point, however, to which we do desire to call the court’s attention, a point which is not touched upon in their opinion, and which, in our judgment, is the crucial point in the case. That is this: ‘That although the custom established by the Supreme Lodge 'of accepting a member’s dues within a given period operated an estoppel on the lodge, forbidding it to refuse to accept those dues within that period- — was a waiver of its right to declare a forfeiture so long as the member was living and tendered his dues within such period —yet this by no means forced the'lodge to accept the dues within such period after the death of the member, or not to insist upon a forfeiture of the policy after such time.’ ”
We gave careful consideration to the point stressed by appellant in the excerpt just quoted. We held with reference to this point, and thought we had indicated our holding, to the effect that, by reason of the general custom or course of dealing with its members, appellant had waived and was estopped to assert - the provision of the contract that gave the right to forfeit the policy for failure of assured to pay monthly dues on or before the 20th of the month. Our holding was not simply that the association had estopped itself from refusing to accept the dues from such member while alive, when tendered within the time established by the custom for payment of dues; but it went much further, and was to the effect that appellant, having waived the provision of the contract, was estopped to claim a forfeiture of the policy on the death of assured, occurring prior to making such payment. Under the course of dealing maintained by appellant, the assured was permitted to pay the dues upon his policy at any time during the month of maturity, or during the succeeding month, without incurring any danger of having his policy forfeited. To state our view in a different way, appellant had by this course of dealing taken the “ipso facto forfeiture” provision from the contract, and it stood at the death of the assured as though no such provision had ever existed.
Even if it be true, as claimed by appellant, that assured failed to pay the October assessment on or before October 20th, under the established course of dealing he could have paid the same at any time prior to December 1st without danger of forfeiture; so at the time of his death, on November IS, 1921, the policy was a valid subsisting contract, assured was in good standing, and had to his credit 17 days of grace within which to make payment. This view is sustained by the authorities cited in the original opinion, and was well expressed by the Supreme Court of Colorado in Head Camp, etc., v. Bohanna, 151 P. 428, 59 Colo. 548, as follows:
“It is contended that, because the assessment for the month of February has never been paid, the society upon no theory is liable. We have already determined that, because of the custom indulged by the company, of allowing Bohanna to make payment of assessments after due, and usually after the 15th of the succeeding month, that being the day of the month npon which he died, he was then in good standing, since the time of extension to him for payment of overdue assessments had not expired; therefore, although the assessment for February was never paid, it is not a matter which the company will be heard to urge as a bar to recovery.”
We have carefully considered appellant’s motion for rehearing, hut, finding no reason to change our original decision, the motion is overruled.