Grand International Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers v. Green

• Decision Date: 12 May 1921
• Docket Number: 2 Div. 710
• Citation: 89 So. 435,206 Ala. 196
• Parties: GRAND INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEERS v. GREEN.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

89 So. 435

206 Ala. 196

GRAND INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEERS v. GREEN.

2 Div. 710

Supreme Court of Alabama

May 12, 1921

Rehearing Denied June 23, 1921

Appeal from Circuit Court, Dallas County; B.M. Miller, Judge.

Action by J.W. Green against the Grand International Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and others. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant named appeals. Reversed and remanded.

S.F Hobbs, of Selma, for appellant.

Stokely Scrivner & Dominick, of Birmingham, for appellee.

SAYRE J.

Appellee to whom hereafter we shall refer as plaintiff, brought this action to recover damages for his alleged (count 1) wrongful and malicious expulsion from defendant association. Count 2 added by amendment, alleged that plaintiff's expulsion was wrongful; count 3, likewise added, alleged that plaintiff had been maliciously expelled. In the beginning individual members of the defendant association were nominated as parties defendant, but before the case was submitted to the jury plaintiff amended his complaint by striking the names of all individual defendants, leaving the Grand International Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers as the sole party defendant. Demurrers to the original and amended complaint were overruled, and these rulings are assigned for error; but these assignments are hardly argued in a way to challenge decision, and in any event decision as to them will be deferred, since the appeal must be determined on other grounds.

In the first place, it is urged that an unincorporated association may not be sued in the name of the association. In the complaint in its final form the Grand International Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, named as sole defendant, is not otherwise described. It does not there appear whether defendant is a body corporate or unincorporate. However, the evidence on the subject went to show without contradiction that defendant is an unincorporated association. An unincorporated association cannot be sued as such, nor in the name of the association, without more. Ex parte Hill, 165 Ala. 365, 51 So. 786; Grand Lodge v. Goodwin, 204 Ala. 213, 85 So. 553.

But plaintiff relies upon the act of August 25, 1909 (Acts Sp Sess. p. 279), as authority for the maintenance of this action. This act is set out in extenso in Ex parte Hill, supra. By its terms it applies only to organizations or associations "that issue policies or certificates of insurance of any kind to their members." The evidence shows the existence of the Locomotive Engineers' Life & Accident Insurance Association, a corporation chartered under the law of the state of Ohio, and in this association plaintiff had two policies of insurance of long standing. We apprehend there is no controversy as to the facts constituting the relation between the defendant Brotherhood and the Insurance Association named above; but the parties differ, of course, as to the operation of the act of 1909 in the presence of the facts. The Brotherhood issues no policies or certificates of insurance; but members are now required to take policies in the Insurance Association, though for a time such insurance was not compulsory. As a result there are about 6,000 members of the Brotherhood who have no insurance in the Association. But no one, not a member of the Brotherhood, is eligible to insurance in the Association, and no one is now accepted as a member of the Brotherhood, unless he has passed a physical examination and is eligible to an insurance policy. The Insurance Association makes its collections of assessments for payment of indemnities through an officer of the local divisions of the Brotherhood. The president and secretary-treasurer of the Association are ex officio members of the supreme governing body of the Brotherhood, known as Grand International Division, and...