Modern Woodmen of America v. Cecil

Burke, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. On the 31st day of August, 1905, the Modern Woodmen of America, a beneficial society, incorporated under the laws of the State of Illinois, issued a benefit certificate to Harry Cecil, a member of Poolesville Camp No. 1159, located in Montgomery County, for the sum of one thousand dollars, payable upon his death to Julia M. Cecil, his mother. On April 23rd, 1906, Harry Cecil was found dead in the room of his boarding house in Washington, D. C., and the proof shows that his death was caused by his drinking carbolic acid. The society refused to pay the insurance to Mrs. Cecil, the ³⁶⁴ mother, and she brought suit upon the certificate in the Circuit Court for Frederick County, and from a judgment entered in ■ her favor the defendant has appealed.

At the trial the plaintiff offered in evidence the certificate . issued by the defendant, and its counsel admitted the death of the insured, and further admitted that the defendant had due notice of his death, and that the death proofs had been submitted to it in proper form as required by the laws of the order, and also admitted that Harry Cecil was a member of the order and in good standing. Thereupon the plaintiff closed her case. There is a provision in the certificate which declares that the same shall be null and void and of no effect, and that all moneys which may have been paid, and all rights and benefits which may have accrued on account of the certificate shall be absolutely forfeited, if the insured shall within three years after becoming a beneficial member of the society die by his own hand, whether sane or insane, except by accident. The single controverted question at the trial was: Did Harry Cecil designedly take his own life?

To show that he did the defendant offered in evidence the testimony of Philip Laddon, a druggist, residing in the District of Columbia; Dr. J. Ramsey Nevitt, the coroner; and William Shamberger, the morgue keeper of the District, and Ira D. Philips, a friend and 100m mate of the deceased. After the testimony of these witnesses' had been taken, the defendant’s counsel, holding in his'hand and exhibiting to the Court a large bundle of papers fastened together, said: “I now .offer in evidence the final death proofs in this, case.” To this offer, as made, the plaintiff objected, and the Court then inquired of the defendant’s attorney for what purpose he offered the proofs of death, and to this inquiry counsel replied: “The death proofs are always admissible, and I now offer the same in evidence for the general purposes of the case, and for what they are worth.” The Court sustained the ¿objection and excluded the proffered testimony. This ruling is the one complained of in the first exception. There was no error in this ruling.

Among the papers pro ³⁶⁵ posed to be offered in evidence was a printed clipping, presumably from some newspaper, giving an account of the death of Harry Cecil, and stating that he had committed suicide because of lack of funds and employment. Upon no principle of evidence could this have been given to the jury. The proofs of death were not admissible because the defendant had admitted that the proofs of death had been furnished as required by the laws of the order, and to have permitted these proofs,.which cover thirteen pages of the printed record, to have been introduced in evidence would have been a useless consumption of the time of the Court. The affidavit of Mrs. Cecil, in which she stated that the insured had committed suicide, was properly admissible, and would no doubt have been admitted in evidence had the attention of the Court been called to it; but offered generally in connection with all the other papers it was rightfully excluded.

This was the only paper, among the many which the defendant proposed to offer, that was admissible in view of the admissions which had been made, and if the counsel desired to offer that paper in evidence he should have called the Court’s attention to it, and the Court would have