Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 18.pdf/611

 574

THE GREEN BAG

those corporate rules which may be expected to be changed by an amendment of the by-laws. As authority for the holding that the duties of members prescribed by the by-laws remain subject to modification when a power of amend ment is reserved, the court cites Loeffler v. Mod ern Woodmen of America, 100 Wis. 79, 75 N. W. 1012; Langnecker v. Grand Lodge, A. O. U. W., in Wis. 279, 87 N. W. 293, ss L. R. A., 185, 87 Am. St. Rep. 860; Lawson v. Hewell, 118 Cal. 613, 50 Pac. 763, 49 L. R. A. 400; Gilmore v. Knights of Columbus, 77 Conn. 58, 58 Atl. 223; Ellerbe v. Faust, 119 Mo. 653, 25 S. W. 390, 25 L. R. A. 149.

duodenum did not relieve the insurer from lia bility without further proof that the bronchitis and not the affection of the digestive tract caused the disability.

MONOPOLIES. (Anti-Trust Statute — Con stitutionality.) Mass. — In Commonwealth :'. Strauss, 78 N. E. 136, a Massachusetts statute declaring that no person, firm, corporation, or association of persons doing business in that com monwealth shall make it a condition of the sale of goods, wares, or merchandise that the purchaser shall not sell or deal in the goods, wares, or mer chandise of any other person, firm, corporation, or association of persons, providing, however, that INSURANCE. (Mutual Insurance — Policy — the statute shall not prohibit the appointment of Inconsistency — Construction.) Mo. Ct. of App.— agents or sole agents for the sale of or the making Under a statutory provision that every policy of contracts for the exclusive sale of goods, wares, or certificate issued by any corporation doing and merchandise, is upheld as a valid exercise of an assessment insurance business shall specify the police power. Expressly disclaiming, as all the exact sum of money which it promises to police power cases do, any intention of defining pay upon the contingency insured against, and the scope and limits of that power, the court says thit the corporation shall be obligated to the that it includes the right to legislate in the interest beneficiary for such payment at the time and of the public health, public safety, and public to the amount specified in the policy or certifi morals, and that if the power is to be held within cate, it is held that a provision of the by-laws the limits of the field thus defined, the words of an insurance organization as to the amount should be interpreted broadly and liberally. It is of benefit to be paid is controlled by a conflict then pointed out that the contracts forbidden hy ing recital in the policy. Courtney v. Fidelity the statute are only those which in ordinary com Mut. Aid Ass'n, 94 S. W. 768. It is, however, petition among equals no one would have any further held in this case that where the by-laws desire or interest to make, and that ordinarily only of an assessment insurance organization pro a person or corporation intrenched in a position of vided that the indemnity for sickness should power can afford to refuse to sell to a jobber or only be paid to the member himself, and in case retailer unless the buyer promises not to handle of his death before payment should revert to any other kind of goods. the association, which should only be liable for In the transaction of business among equals funeral benefits, and that the association should where there is free competition the statute is un in no event be liable for both weekly indemnity necessary, for there is no inducement to do thai and funeral benefits; but the policy provided which it forbids, and its practical effect is limited for a fixed payment per month for disability to preventing great corporations from making from sickness, and declared that, after contin certain contracts intended to drive ordinary com uous membership for twelve months next prior to petitors out of business. The prevention of this the death, funeral expenses would be defrayed by means of the statute is to be regarded, the court in a sum not exceeding $100, a further provision says, as a protection of the public health and public of the by-laws to the effect that where disability safety, if not of the public morals. was the result of sickness, indemnity should be The statute is also declared to be not objection paid for a greater period than ten weeks, was able as an attempted regulation of interstate com not contrary to the terms of the policy forbidden merce, inasmuch as it affects only interstate trans by the statute or objectionable as uncertain actions occasionally, and as it were incidentally. and oppressive. Another point of some interest and was not intended as a regulation of interstate determined in the same case, though bearing commerce. no relation to the ones just mentioned, is that There was evidence that the defendant in the under the policy sued on, which provided that case named a price at which he would sell his the insurer should not be liable for disabilty employer's tobacco, and then stated to the person resulting from bronchitis, evidence that a dis proposing to purchase, that if he bought or sold no abled member suffered from senile bronchitis plug tobacco except that manufactured by defend and a catarrhal condition of the stomach and ant's employer, that defendant would return a