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116 Mich. 129

Schiller Commandery No. 1 v. Jaennichen

Michigan Supreme Court

Decided March 15, 1898

Michigan Supreme Court · decided 1898-03-15

Assumpsit by the Schiller Commandery No. 1, United Friends of Michigan, against Louis Jaennichen, John Groll, and Catherine Thomas for money had and received. From a judgment for defendants on verdict directed by the court, plaintiff brings error. The United Friends of Michigan is an incorporated fraternal beneficiary association, and is within the provisions of Act No. 119 of the Public Acts of 1893.

Relies on Mason v. Finch · Sommers v. Reynolds

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Affirmed · Decided 1898-03-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 12 later decisions — most recently October 1948

12 state decisions

50189819001910192019301940decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Montgomery, J.

¶1(after stating the facts). The withdrawal of the 400 members did not change the identity of the association. The remaining members represented the society, and were entitled to retain the property. Sommers v. Reynolds, 103 Mich. 307; 1 Bac. Ben. Soc. § 38a. The Schiller Commandery No. 1, United Friends of Michigan, was, under the facts stated in the record, *131clearly entitled to the fund on hand at the time of the withdrawal of the 400.

¶2The question is whether the incorporated body is legally identical with the previously-existing voluntary association. The incorporation of the body appears to have been made in accordance with the provisions of Act No. 119 of the Public Acts of 1893, which provides that the voluntary association may become a body corporate if two-thirds of the members present and voting at any regular meeting shall vote in favor of such incorporation. The statute further provides that, when the requirements named in the statute are complied with, such subordinate body shall be a body corporate by the name expressed in the articles, and by that name be a person in law capable of suing and being sued in the courts, and taking and holding property of every kind, the same as natural'persons. The question for decision is whether this act, so far as it relates to associations formed before and existing at the time of its enactment, is operative to vest in the corporation funds belonging to the previously-existing association, where, as in this case, the action to incorporate was not unanimous. We think this question is ruled in the negative by Mason v. Finch, 28 Mich. 282. It should be noted that the record fails to show that the remaining members of the association, the 30 who did not participate in the attempt to incorporate, acquiesced in the action taken. If such affirmative showing had been made, quite a different question would have been presented.

¶3The judgment will be affirmed.

The other Justices concurred.
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