Harris v. National Union of Marine Cooks and Stewards

• Decision Date: 01 August 1950
• Citation: 98 Cal.App.2d 733,221 P.2d 136
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: HARRIS et al. v. NATIONAL UNION OF MARINE COOKS & STEWARDS et al. Civ. 14359.

Page 136

221 P.2d 136

98 Cal.App.2d 733

HARRIS et al. v. NATIONAL UNION OF MARINE COOKS & STEWARDS et al.

Civ. 14359.

District Court of Appeal, First District, Division 2, California.

Aug. 1, 1950.

Rehearing Denied Aug. 31, 1950.

Hearing Denied Sept. 25, 1950.

Gladstein, Andersen, Resner & Sawyer, George R. Andersen, Ewing Sibbett, all of San Francisco, for appellants.

Aaron Sapiro and G. C. Ringole, Los Angeles, for respondents.

DOOLING, Justice.

Plaintiffs were members of defendant union and were purportedly expelled. The trial court issued a writ of mandate commanding their restoration to the union and awarding them damages for their loss of earnings which resulted from the orders expelling them. From this judgment the defendants have appealed.

Plaintiffs were members of a minority group in the union who opposed the adoption of a new constitution. They joined with an expelled member of the union to publish a paper which was extremely outspoken in its criticism of the union's officers and its activities. Written charges were filed against them which resulted in their expulsion by vote of the members.

The constitution of the union then in effect contained the following pertinent provisions:

'Article VIII, Section 1. In case of an accusation brought by one member against another, the membership shall elect a committee of five (5) members, two (2) of whom, in so far as possible, shall be of the same classified grade as the accused, the balance to be selected at large, whose duty it shall be to investigate and try such charges and report their findings together with recommendations for disposition of the case at the next regular meeting of the Headquarters or Branch electing such committee. The punishment to be administered shall be finally determined by the decision of such meeting at Headquarters or at Branches except as otherwise provided in this Constitution.

* * *

* * *

'Article XIV, Section 5. Members may be expelled from this Union only by vote of a Supreme Quorum, after such action has been recommended by a Trial Committee. To expel a member requires a two-thirds majority of the Supreme Quorum.'

As to three of the plaintiffs, Harris, Kaplan and Antons, we need go no further than the first sentence of Art. XIV, sec. 5 above quoted to find ample support for the judgment. A majority of the Trial Committee did not recommend the expulsion of these three. Their expulsion was recommended in a minority report signed by only two of the committee's five members. The provision quoted is clear: 'Members may be expelled from this Union only * * * after such action has been recommended by a Trial Committee.'

The union voted to substitute the minority report for the majority report and to concur therein. That this was a violation of the rule making the recommendation of a Trial Committee a condition precedent to expulsion is so clear that further comment is unnecessary. The fact that under the by-laws Roberts' Rules of Order were adopted as the standard of procedure and that those rules provide for the adoption of a minority report cannot change the plan requirement of the constitution nor convert by procedural sleight of hand the minority report into the recommendation of the committee which the constitution requires.

The constitution of the union constitutes a contract with the members and is the measure of the authority conferred upon the organization to expel or otherwise discipline them. Smetheram v. Laundry Workers' Union, 44 Cal.App.2d 131, 136-137, 111 P.2d 948; Dingwall v. Amalgamated Ass'n etc., 4 Cal.App. 565, 569, 88 P. 597; Bush v. International Alliance, 55 Cal.App.2d 357, 364, 130 P.2d 788; Weber v. Marine Cooks' & Stewards' Ass'n, 93 Cal.App.2d 327, 334-335, 208 P.2d 1009.

Appellants argue that plaintiffs did not exhaust their remedies within the union before appealing to the courts. They rely on section 7, Article XIV of the constitution, which reads: 'No member expelled from this Union shall be reinstated to membership except by a referendum vote of Headquarters and Branches taken at three (3) consecutive regular meetings.'

Rather than supplying a remedy for a wrongful expulsion this section imposes a strict limitation on the manner in which a member who has been once expelled may thereafter be reinstated to membership. It offers no relief to the wrongfully expelled member, but seems designed instead to make it difficult for a rightfully expelled member to regain his lost membership. In order to avail themselves of this section the expelled members must recognize the validity of their expulsion and ask for reinstatement. We agree with plaintiffs that this section provides a penalty (it appears in an Article headed 'Fines and Punishments') and may not properly be considered a remedy within the meaning of the rule that a member must exhaust his remedies within the association before appealing to the courts.

Furthermore this case falls within the rule announced in Weber v. Marine Cooks' & Stewards' Ass'n, supra, at p. 338 of 93 Cal.App.2d at page 1016 of 208 P.2d, that 'where an organization has violated its own laws and arbitrarily violated a member's property rights the rule of exhaustion of remedies by appeals to a higher body within the organization need not be adhered to before direct resort to a judicial tribunal.'

The suggestion that the expulsion must be upheld, however much the procedure violated the rights guaranteed to the members by the...