313 Mass. 625 | Mass. | 1943
This suit is here after the sustaining by the Superior Court of demurrers to the plaintiff’s amended bill. The demurrers were upon two grounds. Both grounds are open for consideration here, although the trial judge, sustained the demurrers upon only one of them. Ratté v. Forand, 299 Mass. 185, 187. Walter v. McCarvel, 309 Mass. 260, 263.
We think the demurrers must be sustained on the general ground first set forth in each of them, which is in substance that the plaintiff has failed to state a .case.
The two defects in the bill just mentioned might in themselves prove fatal to it. We prefer, however, to examine the bill further and to assume for the purposes of this opinion that the Local was a subordinate or affiliate of the International; that the plaintiff was a member of and had rights in both; and that the Joint Council bore such relation to the
If, regarding the bill in this aspect, it is possible to piece together various separated allegations to show that a majority of the local executive board had not been properly chosen in accordance with the constitution of the International, yet the bill seems to say that they had actually held their offices under their assumed appointments for approximately two years, and we think that for the purposes of this case they must be deemed to have been officers de facto. Attorney General v. Crocker, 138 Mass. 214. Tufts v. Waltham Auto Bus Co. 273 Mass. 390, 395. Commonwealth v. DiStasio, 297 Mass. 347, certiorari denied, sub nomine DiStasio v. Massachusetts, 302 U. S. 683, and cases cited. The plaintiff was therefore subject to their jurisdiction.
The plaintiff next challenges the composition of the executive board of the Joint Council. His attack centers upon a provision of the constitution of the International that no one shall be eligible to be a voting member of the Joint Council unless he is a “duly elected” officer of a local union. It is alleged that at the hearing on the plaintiff’s appeal “there were permitted to sit in judgment” not only appointees of the “trustee” of Local 259, who had already heard the case, but others appointed from several other locals, also in “trusteeship,” none of whom were elected officers. How many of such officers were permitted to sit and whether they constituted a majority or a small minority of the board does not appear. The constitutional provisions set forth in the bill are not complete enough to make it clear that a distinction was intended in the constitution between “duly elected ” and appointed officers in those presumably rare instances where a local is under “trusteeship” and where appointed officers, apparently with full powers in other respects, may be substituted for elected ones. There is nothing contrary to principles of natural justice in the mere fact that a judicial officer who has taken part in a decision in a lower tribunal also sits upon an appeal of the same case in a higher tribunal. That has been common practice in courts of justice. It has been done in this court in the past and upon necessity might
Moreover, even if there had been a failure in some respect to observe the established rules in the membership of the two lower boards, the plaintiff has had the benefit of an appeal to the general executive board of the International, which had full power to review the entire case and was in no way bound by the decisions of the other boards. See Rubens v. Weber, 237 App. Div. (N. Y.) 15, 18.
We turn next to the allegations of the bill relative to the proceedings before the general executive board. The plaintiff does not assail the membership of this board. He does, however, assail the fairness of his hearing before it by means of allegations which if used in every day speech, with the inferences that might naturally be drawn from them, might point toward a denial of some of the plaintiff’s fundamental rights, but which lose their impressiveness when tested by the rule that the allegations of a pleading must be those of precise fact and not of generalized conclusion and cannot be aided by the drawing of any but necessary inferences. (1) The allegation that this hearing was “predicated upon the illegal hearing before the abortive” local executive board and the Joint Council means nothing in the absence of further explanation. Being on appeal, the hearing would necessarily be “predicated” on what had preceded it. (2) The bill alleges that the members of the general executive board had a policy to punish members of the International who at any time brought suit against the International, or its officers or agents, and that the plaintiff then had a suit pending against one Jennings. But it does not appear that Jennings, although he had been appointed “trustee” of the Local, was an officer or agent of the International within the scope of this policy, or that the board knew of the suit, or that the
It has become unnecessary to consider whether the demurrers could properly be sustained on the second ground
The plaintiff also appeals from the denial of his motion that the bill be taken for confessed against the Local, the Joint Council, and the International for want of appearance and answer. No decree of any kind could be entered against these voluntary associations as distinct from their individual members. The associations were not corporations. All of their members were defendants in their individual capacities, and all were represented for purposes of the suit by the individual defendants named. Pickett v. Walsh, 192 Mass. 572, 590. Malloy v. Carroll, 287 Mass. 376, 391. These named defendants had duly appeared and demurred. Their action protected the unnamed defendants.
Interlocutory decrees affirmed.
Final decree affirmed with costs.