NOTES OF RECENT CASES tery to apply to a court of equity for protection from arrest and public prosecution while he pur sues his criminal vocation. It would indeed be a sad commentary on our jurisprudence if a justi fication could be had for holding that a license to commit crime, issued by a city administra tion, could be made the basis of equitable inter ference for the protection of the holder from public prosecution while he continues to violate the law. The conduct of the parties is equally culpable and neither deserves any consideration at the hands of the court." INSURANCE. (Accident Policy — Sunstroke.) Kans. Sup. Ct. — A point which seems to be entirely without direct precedent is determined in Continental Casualty Company v. Johnson, 85 Pac. 545. The action was on an accident policy containing a provision that loss of time due solely to sunstroke or freezing should be deemed to be due to external violent and purely accidental causes, and entitle the assured to full benefits. Insured was a fluewelder and while engaged in that occupation was overcome by heat from the forge or furnace near which he worked. Any one wishing a complete collection of the authorities on the question of what con stitutes a sunstroke would do well to refer to the opinion in this case, as almost every recognized work, whether of a general or strictly medical nature, is referred to and qoutcd from in deter mining the question whether the injury sustained by the insured was a sunstroke. Upon all the authorities the conclusion is reached that the term sunstroke means prostration resulting from extreme heat and is equally applicable whether the heat is the direct result of sunlight or is pro duced artificially. " There may," says the court, "be an apparent incongruity in calling that sunstroke which has no relation to any effect produced by the sun, but this is only to say that the word is not happily formed to suggest the idea it is employed to express. Etymology is not always a safe guide to the meaning of a term. It is no more imperative that sunstroke shall always mean a disorder caused by the sun, than that lunacy shall denote an aberration due to the influence of the moon." The only cases cited by the court as dealing with the question are Dozier v. Fidelity & Casualty Co., 46 Fed 446, and Sinclair v. Maritime Pass. Assur. Co., 3 El. & El. 478, which merely hold that sunstroke is not an accident but a disease. INSURANCE. (Mutual Benefit Societies — Increase of Assessment.) Mass. —• The change in rate of assessment adopted not long since by
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one of the oldest assessment insurance orders in the country has been held valid by the supreme court of Massachusetts in Reynolds v. Supreme Council Royal Arcanum, 78 N. E. 129. The association was organized under a Massa chusetts statute which authorizes mutual bene fit societies to adopt by-laws declaring the manner in which the purposes of their incorporation may be accomplished, and to prescribe the assess ment of benefits in case of disability or death and the conditions under which the same shall be paid, as well as to provide a method for amend ment of the by-laws, and make provision for the payment of benefits in case of death or disability or both from the fund derived solely from assess ments collected from members, as required in the by-laws. Under this statute, it is held that where it appeared that the society was founded on a plan which would ultimately result in its inability to pay certificates issued, it was auth orized to so amend its by-laws as to increase its benefit assessments to an amount equal to the cost of insurance. At the time of joining the society every mem ber entered into an express agreement to conform to and abide by the constitution, laws, rules, and usages then in force or which might thereafter be adopted, and the benefit certificates of the society promised payment of death benefits only on condition that the member complied with the laws which then governed or might thereafter be enacted to govern the order and its funds. In view of this provision of the contract, the court declares that by-laws changing the society's plan of assessment and adopting an increased graduated assessment schedule sufficient to cover the cost of insurance was not a violation of the then existing contracts of members. It is pointed out that there are many cases in which it is held that the amount expressly prom ised to be paid in a certificate issued by a mutual benefit society cannot be cvit down by an amend ment of the by-laws, and Newhall v. American Legion of Honor, 63 N. E. i, Langan v. Same, 66 N. E. 932, and American Legion of Honor v. Getz, 112 Fed. 119, are cited as examples of those cases, but a distinction is drawn between the express stipulation of a corporation to pay a certain sum and other provisions relating to the methods of the corporation and the duties of the certificate holders, which properly may be a subject for regulation by by-laws, even though they affect the rights of the members under their contracts. The assessments to be paid for death benefits are provided for by the by-laws, while the prom ise in writing to pay a certain sum to a particular person is as to that person a matter outside of
