BANKRUPTCY-CORPORATE REORGANIZATION - FRATERNAL BENEFIT SOCIETY ENTITLED TO BENEFITS OF SECTION 77B

Authors

Russel T. Walker, University of Michigan Law SchoolFollow

Abstract

Plaintiff's right to petition for reorganization under section 77 B of the Bankruptcy Act was challenged on the ground that plaintiff was an "insurance corporation" within the meaning of section 4 of the Bankruptcy Act and therefore excepted from the benefits of the act. Held, that when Congress used the words "insurance corporation" in the Bankruptcy Act, it meant a corporation authorized by the law of its creation to do an insurance business. As Congress knew that the various States had authorized the formation of fraternal benefit societies, described as such in enabling statutes, when Congress passed this statute without defining the characteristics of "insurance corporations," it recognized the various definitions thereof in the statutes of the several states as to what constitutes an insurance corporation. Under the Florida law, petitioner was not an insurance corporation, but a fraternal benefit society, and therefore not excluded from benefits of the act. Grand Lodge, Knights of Pythias of North America v. McKee, (C. C. A. 5th, 1938) 95 F. (2d) 474.

Recommended Citation

Russel T. Walker, BANKRUPTCY-CORPORATE REORGANIZATION - FRATERNAL BENEFIT SOCIETY ENTITLED TO BENEFITS OF SECTION 77B, 37 Mich. L. Rev. 1128 (1939).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol37/iss7/13