Michigan § 457.503 - Articles of association; acknowledgment; filing copy of articles with department of commerce; signers of articles, associates, and successors as body politic and corporate; powers.

Such articles of association shall be acknowledged before a notary public, and a copy thereof shall be filed with the corporation and securities bureau of the department of commerce, and thereupon the persons who shall have signed such articles of association, their associates and successors, shall be a body politic and corporate by the name expressed in such articles of association, and by that name they and their successors shall have succession, and shall be persons in the law capable to sue and be sued, to have a common seal, which may be altered or changed at their pleasure, to receive, hold and enjoy, for themselves and their successors, estates, real and personal, and to give, grant, sell, lease, demise and dispose of such estates: Provided, That such real estate, and the proceeds, rents and incomes thereof shall be devoted exclusively to the charitable and benevolent purposes of the fraternity known as the Ancient Order of United Workmen. Said corporation shall have full power to make and establish rules, regulations and bylaws not repugnant to the constitution and laws of the United States or of this state, of the supreme lodge of the Ancient Order of United Workmen, and to designate, elect or appoint from its members, such officers, under such name and style as shall be in accordance with the constitution and laws of said supreme lodge. And said corporation shall have power to create, hold, and disburse beneficiary, relief, guaranty, general, or other funds for the benefit of sick or disabled members or of members of the families of deceased members of subordinate lodges of the Ancient Order of United Workmen, or of persons related to such members by blood, or who shall be dependent upon such members; to enter into arrangements or agreements with the supreme lodge or with the supreme lodge relief board, whereby, in the event of an unusual number of deaths occurring in any 1 year among the members of the lodges subordinate to the jurisdiction of said grand lodge, or of any other grand lodge, or of the supreme lodge of the said order, said grand lodge may afford aid from its guaranty fund, or may itself receive aid, as the case may require; and to levy assessments upon members of subordinate lodges for the purpose of raising the beneficiary, relief, guaranty, general or other funds, and of carrying out such arrangements with the supreme lodge or with the supreme lodge relief board: Provided, That nothing in this section shall be construed as giving to a grand lodge power to make assessments for the purpose of paying sick benefits.