Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

“ We mention these details to show that the plaintiff suffers no injustice and meets with no surprise when we state our opinion that the assumption under § 3 of the new charter of a relation with the plaintiff that originally arose under a law of the old corporation was not the assumption of a contract for immutable assessments, and decide that the power to amend, given by § 4, included the power to raise the rates to such point as was necessary for the corporation to go on. ”

“ Persons who join institutions of this sort are not dealing at arm's length with a stranger whose mode of providing for payment does not concern them, but only his promise to pay. They are joining a club the members of which have to pay any benefit that any member can receive. The corporation is simply the machine for collection and distribution. Its charter expressly provides by § 5 that it 'shall not engage in any business for gain ”

“ The court of civil appeals affirmed a judgment for the plaintiff on a verdict directed by the trial court, modifying it so far as to confine the recovery to payments made since the issue of the certificate of 1885, with interest. An application to the supreme court for a writ of error was refused.
There is a motion to dismiss, but as the case necessarily will turn on the construction of the present charter, an act of Congress, and the defendant justifies under it, the motion is denied. Creswill v. Grand Lodge, K. P. 225 U.S. 246, 258, 56 L. ed. 1074, 1078, 32 Sup. Ct. Rep. 822. ”