Grand International Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers v. Green

• Decision Date: 29 November 1923
• Docket Number: 2 Div. 811.
• Citation: 98 So. 569,210 Ala. 496
• Parties: GRAND INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEERS v. GREEN.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

98 So. 569

210 Ala. 496

GRAND INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEERS v. GREEN.

2 Div. 811.

Supreme Court of Alabama

November 29, 1923

Rehearing Denied Dec. 20, 1923.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Dallas County; Henry B. Foster, Judge.

Action for damages by J. W. Green against the Grand International Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, for his wrongful and malicious expulsion from the order. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals. Reversed conditionally.

Arthur M. Pitts, of Selma, for appellant.

A. D Pitts, of Selma, and Stokely, Scrivner, Dominick & Smith and Andrew J. Thomas, all of Birmingham, for appellee.

SAYRE J.

As shown by the report of a former appeal in this cause (G I. B. of L. E. v. Green, 206 Ala. 196, 89 So. 435) the action was brought originally against the Grand International Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, an unincorporated association, individual members of the organization being joined as parties defendant, but, by amendment, the brotherhood became the sole party defendant. On the appeal which followed a judgment against the brotherhood, this court held that an unincorporated association, such as the defendant is, could not be sued as such, nor in the name of the association, without more.

Subsequently October 28, 1921 (p. 14 of the Acts), the Legislature passed an act "providing for actions by and against unincorporated organizations or associations and regulating the procedure thereon." On April 25, 1922, defendant brotherhood was brought in by service on J. C. DeHoll who had been designated to the secretary of state as the agent on whom service might be had for the brotherhood. The cause proceeded then again to judgment against defendant; after which this appeal.

One important question on this appeal is whether this suit may be maintained against the defendant brotherhood, and unincorporated association. As one alternative answer appellee contends that the former decision of this court was in error, citing the recent ruling of the Supreme Court of the United States in United Mine Workers of America v. Coronado Coal Co., 259 U.S. 344, 42 S.Ct. 570, 66 L.Ed. 975. But that case in terms affirms the common-law rule to be that unincorporated associations of persons were not recognized as having any other character than a partnership in whatever they do, and could only sue or be sued in the names of its members, and their liability had to be enforced against each member; but it was further held that unincorporated labor unions had been recognized as distinct entities by numerous acts of Congress and were suable as such in the federal courts upon process served on their principal officers for the torts committed by them in strikes, and their strike funds subjected to execution. This places liability, so far as the federal courts are concerned, upon the statute law governing those courts, and in no wise impairs the integrity of our decision on the former appeal in this cause.

However, the act of October 28, 1921, supra, provided a rule of liability in this as in other causes of like character. It provided that "actions or suits may be maintained against and in the name of any unincorporated organization or association for any cause of action for or upon which the plaintiff therein may maintain such an action against the members of such organization or association" (section 2), and that "such organization or association shall be suable in any action now pending, or any cause of action now existing or hereafter arising" (section 4). This act-certainly in so far as it applies to causes of action subsequently arising-impairs no obligation of contracts, affects no vested rights, and was within the competency of the Legislature. It is a remedial statute, and must be liberally construed to advance the competent legislative purpose. As applied to transactions past at the time of its enactment it impaired no vested rights; it merely affects the mode of judicial procedure. Executions on judgments rendered in pursuance of the act are now leviable upon the property of the defendant organization or association and are thus made to reach property which, prior to the act, could not so be reached, nor at all except by a circuitous action through the individual members; but the ownership of any property or funds acquired by the association vests in the members jointly, and the act affects only the remedy by providing more direct access to such property. The act is therefore remedial in character, and its application to proceedings pending at the time of its enactment works no hardship or injustice, but, rather, protects and secures the existing rights of parties. Of the competency of the Legislature, in general, to enact such law there can be no doubt.

The main argument for appellant on the question as to the operation of this act is based upon the proposition that it can take effect upon actions pending at the time of its passage-that is, retrospectively, as the argument puts it-only in virtue of the quoted provision making unincorporated associations suable in pending actions and on existing causes of action, and that so much of the act as purports to provide to that effect is of no constitutional validity, for the reason that no intimation of that purpose appears in the title of the act, citing Lindsay v. United States Savings & Loan Association, 120 Ala. 156, 24 So 171, 42 L. R. A. 783. But in that case the court said: "There are statutes which may be enacted"-meaning validly enacted-"having general titles, and which may not by their terms show clearly the intent that they are to operate retrospectively," that is, upon pending actions and causes of action. "Remedial statutes, in regulation of judicial proceedings *** are examples." The language we have quoted suffices for the purpose of this case; but we may with profit refer further to the analysis of that case made in State ex rel. Brassell v. Teasley, 194 Ala. 574, 69 So. 723, Ann. Cas. 1918E, 347, where it was shown, without dissent on this point, that the only language of the title to the act brought to judgment in the Lindsay Case to which the provision purging building and loan contracts of the taint of usury could be referred-for there was no other to which it could be referred-was the following: "Defining premiums, fines and stock taken to represent premiums," and that, as for anything now in point, the quoted language of the title wholly failed to give intimation of the provision of the body of the act. Here the case is different. If the act here in question took away or impaired rights, vested agreeably to existing laws, according to a good general rule of law it should have no retrospect. Boyce v. Holmes, 2 Ala. 56. But, in order to enforce a pre-existent right, this act gives a new remedy, and it is a cardinal rule of construction that such acts must be liberally expounded, and, no legislative intention to the contrary appearing, must, in virtue of their remedial character without more, be held to embrace actions and causes of action existing prior to their enactment. Bartlett v. Lang, 2 Ala. 401; Elliott v. Mayfield, 4 Ala. 417; Yarborough v. Moss, 9 Ala. 382; Iverson v. Shorter, 9 Ala. 713; Skains v. Barnes, 168 Ala. 426, 53 So. 268; Brannon v. Henry, 175 Ala. 454, 57 So. 967; McBurney v. Carson, 99 U.S. 379, 25 L.Ed. 378. From these considerations and authorities is derived our conclusion that the language of the body of the act merely served to emphasize the legislative purpose that the act should have effect on pending actions and causes of action, as it would have had in the absence of such language, and hence that its omission...