Goodman v. Jedidjah Lodge No. 7

• Decision Date: 16 March 1887
• Citation: 9 A. 13,67 Md. 117
• Parties: GOODMAN and others v. JEDIDJAH LODGE NO. 7, INDEPENDENT ORDER OR B'NAI B'RITH.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

9 A. 13

67 Md. 117

GOODMAN and others

v. JEDIDJAH LODGE NO. 7, INDEPENDENT ORDER OR B'NAI B'RITH.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

March 16, 1887.

Appeal from circuit court, Baltimore city.

Charles Marshall and M. R. Walter, for appellants.

Wm, P. Whyte, H. F. Garey, and D. Greenbaum, for appellees.

MILLER, J. This is another case growing out of the controversy between the minority and majority of the members of Jedidjah Lodge over the funds of the lodge, the history of which is given in the case of District Grand Lodge v. Jedidjah Lodge, 65 Md. 236, 3 Atl. Rep. 104. In stating the facts in that case, we purposely abstained from any comment upon the conduct of either party, in the hope that our decision would put an end to the litigation, and that the breach would be healed by time and reflection, especially when the minority found that the fund was entirely safe, and would be devoted to the same general benevolent purposes for which it was raised, even if it remained in the hands of the lodge. But in the present case it becomes necessary to say that we fully concur in the views expressed by the learned judge of the court below, "that the severance between this lodge and the general order, which forms the basis of the equity invoked, must appear to have occurred otherwise than by the fault of the complainants, for it is quite apparent that the machinery of a court of equity will not be set in active motion for the purpose of enabling parties to take advantage of their own wrong." We are constrained to say that, in our opinion, the conduct of the minority throughout this whole controversy has not been such as to challenge for the present claim the favorable consideration of a court of equity. When the controversy first arose, on the sixth of July, 1884, as to whether the bonds in which the funds of Jedidjah Lodge were invested, should, in obedience to the order of the grand lodge, be so registered as to transfer the equitable title to the bonds to the latter lodge, the minority, upon being outvoted on that question, instituted this litigation at once and with unseemly haste. We say this haste was unseemly in view of the fact that they were fellow-members of a lodge which had taken for its motto, "Benevolence, brotherly love, and harmony," which by one of its fundamental articles "seriously enjoined" its members "not to bring suits against each other before a public court of justice before an amicable settlement has been attempted before the tribunal" to be treated by the lodge itself, and where all were engaged in a noble and beneficent work of charity.

One would naturally suppose that in such a case some effort at persuasion and conciliation would have been made before a resort to litigation was had; that even the district grand lodge would have received with some deference the objections of a majority of the two oldest, largest, and most important lodges in the district upon a question involving the title to nearly $20,000 in money and securities, and would have given them at least some consideration, and not have met them with precipitate and harsh action. But only four days after the vote in the lodge was taken, the minority filed a bill in the court below of a very remarkable character. They charged that the five trustees and the treasurer of the lodge, in whose custody and keeping these securities and money were, had conspired with certain members of the lodge other than the complainants to fraudulently deprive the lodge and the complainants of these funds, and to fraudulently divert them from the trust purposes for which they had been placed in their hands; that they had withdrawn the funds of the lodge deposited in bank, without any legal authority, and had openly and publicly declared that they had severed their connection with the order, and that they intended to retain all the funds, and use them for such purposes as they and their co-conspirators might agree upon. These were the sole charges (and they were afterwards shown to be unfounded) made in this bill against any of the members of the lodge, and these officers were the sole defendants. But, more than this, the individual complainants, without any authority to do so, used the name of the lodge itself, and made it a party complainant with them. In this bill they said not a word about the vote in the lodge, which had just taken place, gave the court no information about the controversy over the title to and custody of these funds, and made no disclosure of the grounds upon which the majority rested the claim of the lodge to continue the holding of such title and possession, though all these facts were perfectly well known to them at the time. The bill, therefore, when it was presented to the judge for an injunction and a receiver, appeared to him to be simply a bill in which the lodge itself, as well as the complainants, was asking relief against the fraud, actual or contemplated, of its own officers, and certain unnamed members of the lodge who were their co-conspirators in the perpetration of the fraud. It made a case which was unquestionably within the jurisdiction of a court of equity, and the judge, according to the usual practice in such cases, was authorized, if not bound, to grant a preliminary injunction, and appoint a receiver, as he did. But in view of what took place out of court immediately afterwards, and of what was developed in the subsequent progress of the litigation, he was quite right in saying, when the case was brought to a final hearing, that his intervention in the first instance was procured upon a bill which contained "both the suggestio falsi and the suppressio veri." Three days after this bill was filed came the suspension of the lodge, and as speedily as possible thereafter the forfeiture of its conventional charter by the district grand lodge at a special meeting called for that purpose in the city of Baltimore. Then came the supplemental bill by the district grand lodge, claiming the whole of these funds by virtue of such forfeiture. In this bill Jedidjah Lodge was made a defendant, together with all its members. The lodge itself, and a majority of its members, in their answers, resisted the claim, but the minority assented to it. From all the facts and surrounding circumstances disclosed by the evidence in that case, we cannot doubt but that it was the plan and purpose of the minority and of the district grand lodge, not only to get possession of these funds and securities, but to cut off the majority from membership in the order, and deprive them of all interest in the fund, which they had contributed equally with the minority, and not one cent of which had been contributed by any one else; and that they did this simply because the majority had insisted upon the right of the lodge to hold onto its own funds and property. That was the case which was before us in 65 Md. 236, 3 Atl. Rep. 104, and all that need now to be said about it is that, in our opinion, the claim there set up was unjust and inequitable.

The district grand lodge, having failed in this attempt to get possession of the whole fund, now drops out of the litigation, and the minority have filed the present bill in their individual names, in which they claim their proportionate part of it, and ask for an injunction, and an account to ascertain their share. But the present record discloses the fact that the complainants have long since voluntarily seceded from Jedidjah Lodge, and formed anew lodge in connection with and under the authority of the district grand lodge. They did this as early as the seventh of September, 1884, shortly after the forfeiture had been decreed, and not only long before the appeal which Jedidjah Lodge had taken from that decree had been decided by the appellate tribunal of the order, but before the supplemental bill, to which they were made parties, was tiled, and while they were actively carrying on the litigation under their original bill as members of the lodge. They say in their present bill that Jedidjah Lodge had ceased to be a constituent member of the general order through "no fault of theirs;" but to this we do not agree. On the contrary, it is our opinion that the facts clearly show that this unjust and arbitrary forfeiture was brought about by their active agency, and that their conduct throughout the whole controversy has been pervaded with bad faith both to the court and their brethren of the majority. When we consider the fact that the minority well knew that the sole controversy between them and the majority was in regard to the right of possession and title to these funds, and then look to the character of the original bill by which the injunction and receiver were obtained, and then to what immediately followed, through their agency,...