Leventhal v. Jennings
| Decision Date | 29 May 1942 |
| Citation | 42 N.E.2d 595,311 Mass. 622 |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
| Parties | LOUIS LEVENTHAL v. P. HARRY JENNINGS & others. |
November 12, 1941.
Present: FIELD, C.
J., DONAHUE, QUA DOLAN, & RONAN, JJ.
Equity Jurisdiction, Plaintiff's clean hands, Voluntary association, Class suit. Voluntary Association. Equity Pleading and Practice, Master: recommittal, report of evidence, exhibit, exceptions to report.
No error appeared in the denial of a motion to recommit to a master grounded on facts, the evidence of which, if any, did not appear in the record, or on matters which were discretionary with the judge.
It was proper to strike from the report of a master, who was not ordered to report evidence, a statement that exhibits introduced in evidence before him "are hereby incorporated by reference," where it did not appear that such exhibits were incorporated in his findings of fact.
An exception to a master's report must be overruled unless grounded upon an error apparent on the face of the report.
A suit in equity brought by the president of a local labor union in behalf of himself and such other members as might desire to join, in which the plaintiff, who was not joined by any other member complained of alleged unjustified action by the international body of the union ousting him and others from their offices and appointing a "receiver" for the local, was barred by the fact that the plaintiff had been guilty of improper conduct respecting the finances and other affairs of the local which precipitated the action of the international body.
BILL IN EQUITY filed in the Superior Court on November 23, 1939. The decrees appealed from were entered by order of Good, J.
E. M. Dangel, (L.
E. Sherry & G.
A. Goldstein with him,) for the plaintiff.
H. R. Donaghue, for the defendants.
The plaintiff brings this bill in behalf of himself and such other officers and members of a local union of newspaper chauffeurs, distributors and helpers, hereinafter called the local, as may desire to join, against the international brotherhood to which the local belongs, the joint council another local labor organization having some appellate functions, one Pearlstein as secretary-treasurer of the local, and several other individuals stated to be exercising without right the powers of officers of the local. The bill alleges a conspiracy to oust the plaintiff from his offices of president and business agent of the local and other officers of the local from their respective offices, to usurp their offices, and to obtain control of the property and funds of the local, "all without probable cause or legal justification." No other members of the local have joined the plaintiff in prosecuting the suit.
After the coming in of a master's report containing findings generally adverse to the plaintiff, wherein the master states that there had been introduced in evidence before him more than four hundred exhibits "which are hereby incorporated by reference," the plaintiff filed a motion to recommit and a motion to "set aside" the master's report. The judge denied both motions, entered an interlocutory decree overruling exceptions to the master's report, modifying the report by striking out the words quoted above purporting to incorporate the exhibits, and confirming the report as modified, and entered a final decree dismissing the bill with costs. The plaintiff appealed from the orders (here treated as interlocutory decrees) and from the decrees just mentioned.
There was no error in denying the plaintiff's motion to recommit. Some of the elaborate grounds set forth in the motion depend upon facts as to what took place at the hearing before the master, but it does not appear what, if any, evidence of these facts was introduced at the hearing before the judge. Pearson v. Mulloney, 289 Mass. 508 , 512, 513. Others request reports of evidence or of additional facts, or of further subsidiary facts and were within the discretion of the judge. Israel v. Sommer, 292 Mass. 113, 119. Epstein v. Epstein, 287 Mass. 248 , 254. Others simply assert that the master's findings are wrong, and still others are plainly unsound and call for no further comment.
The plaintiff has not separately argued his appeal from the denial of his motion to "set aside" the master's report. No reason appears why it should have been granted.
There was no error in striking from the master's report the words purporting to incorporate therein by reference the evidence embodied in more than four hundred exhibits. There is nothing in the record to show that the master had been ordered to report any evidence, whether oral or in the form of exhibits. Exhibits alone without the oral evidence by which they are identified, explained, and often controlled can seldom be of any value to the court. See Carleton & Hovey Co. v. Burns, 285 Mass. 479, 484. What is here said does not apply to exhibits which are incorporated as parts of findings of fact made by the master, as a few of them (including the constitutions and by-laws of the local and the international) were in the report now before us. We construe the decree of the judge as referring to the mass of exhibits that were merely reported as having been introduced in evidence.
There was no error in overruling the plaintiff's exceptions to the master's report and in confirming the report as modified. The plaintiff filed one hundred seventy-eight objections to the master's report. There is no merit in any of them. Most of them ignore the elementary rule that an exception to a master's report cannot avail unless error appears on the face of the report itself. Zuckernick v. Jordan Marsh Co. 290 Mass. 151 , 155. Chopelas v. Chopelas, 303 Mass. 33 , 36. They rest upon the assertion of counsel that the master should or should not have made certain findings. Anderson v. Connolly, 310 Mass. 5 , 10. Several complain that there should have been more detail in subsidiary findings -- a matter, as hereinbefore stated, within the discretion of the judge on the motion to recommit. The few remaining are obviously groundless and require no discussion.
This brings us to the final decree. At a meeting of the local on September 19 1939, one Jennings, "International Business Organizer" for the district, under direction of the international president and in pursuance of instructions of the general executive board of the international, took control of the local and "suspended or removed" the plaintiff and some of the other officers of the local from their offices. With the authority and upon the direction of the general executive board the...
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