McGuiness v. Court Elm City, No. 1, Foresters of America

• Decision Date: 09 June 1905
• Parties: McGUINESS v. COURT ELM CITY, NO. 1, FORESTERS OF AMERICA.
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court

60 A. 1023

78 Conn. 43

McGUINESS

v. COURT ELM CITY, NO. 1, FORESTERS OF AMERICA.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

June 9, 1905.

Appeal from Court of Common Pleas, New Haven County; Leverett M. Hubbard. Judge.

Action by Patrick McGuiness against the Court Elm City, No. 1, Foresters of America, for damages, and to restrain enforcement of an order suspending plaintiff from the society. From a judgment for defendant, plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

Charles S. Hamilton, for appellant. James P. Pigott, for appellee.

TORRANCE, C. J. The defendant, a fraternal benefit society, incorporated under the laws of this state, is what is known as a "subordinate court" of the order of Foresters of America. One of the laws of the society, set forth in the complaint, provides as follows: "A member shall not resort to the civil courts for redress for an alleged injury, until he has exhausted every means of appeal in the order. The penalty of noncompliance with this law shall be expulsion from the order." Other laws of the society, which were laid in evidence, confer upon the members the absolute right of appeal from any action or decision of the defendant, or of its committees, officers, or agents, and provide amply and reasonably for the exercise of that right, and for successive appeals from one tribunal to another within the order. They also provide that any aggrieved party failing to take an appeal from any such action or decision shall be bound thereby, "and shall have no further recourse, whether in law or in equity, in respect to the subject-matter of such action or decision." The arbitration committee of the defendant, which tried and convicted the plaintiff as alleged in the complaint, had "power to fine, suspend for a period not exceeding one year, depose from office, or expel a member from the order." The complaint alleges, in substance, that the plaintiff, being a member of the defendant society in good standing, was by the defendant, for an alleged violation of the aforesaid law of the defendant forbidding a resort to the civil courts without having "exhausted every means of appeal in the order," sentenced to pay a fine of $25 and be suspended for one year; that the committee that convicted him of a violation of said law and sentenced him as above alleged was not the regular committee appointed for the trial of members, but was one illegally packed for the purpose of convicting the plaintiff; that of the meeting of said committee at which he was thus convicted and sentenced he had no notice, and no such notice as the laws of the defendant require, and was not present at said hearing, nor had he any opportunity to be present; and that for these reasons his conviction and sentence were irregular, illegal, and void. The complaint admitted that the plaintiff received written notice of said conviction and sentence. The plaintiff offered no evidence to prove, and did not claim, that he had taken any appeal from said conviction and sentence. The plaintiff offered evidence to prove, and claimed to have proved, the substance of the allegations of his complaint. The answer denied most of the material allegations of the complaint, but the main defense made under it was that the plaintiff had brought the present suit without having exhausted his right of appeal in the order as required by the law aforesaid; and the evidence for the defendant tended to prove, and the defendant claimed to have proved, that the plaintiff, after he received notice of his conviction and sentence as aforesaid, had full right, power, and opportunity to appeal, but that he had taken no such appeal, and had thus failed to comply with said law before bringing this suit.

Upon the facts claimed to have been proved by the plaintiff he asked the court, among other things, to charge, in substance, (1) that the law aforesaid forbidding members to resort to the civil courts was void, as being an attempt to oust said courts of their jurisdiction; (2) that, if the law...