Pavelka v. St. Albert Soc'y

• Decision Date: 06 May 1909
• Citation: Pavelka v. St. Albert Soc'y, 72 A. 725, 82 Conn. 146 (Conn. 1909)
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: PAVELKA v. ST. ALBERT SOCIETY, BRANCH NO. 30, OF FIRST CATHOLIC SLAVOK UNION.

72 A. 725

82 Conn. 146

PAVELKA

v. ST. ALBERT SOCIETY, BRANCH NO. 30, OF FIRST CATHOLIC SLAVOK UNION.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

May 6, 1909.

Appeal from Court of Common Pleas, New Haven County; Isaac Wolfe, Judge.

Action for damages by Matj Pavelka against the St. Albert Society, Branch No. 30, of the First Catholic Slavok Union. From a judgment for defendant, plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

The complaint alleges that the plaintiff on September 1, 1905, was a member in good standing of the defendant; that the defendant was a benefit society, membership in which entitled one to benefits in case of death or injury; that it maintained a fund for the payment of such benefits; that on September 15, 1905, the plaintiff was expelled from membership without charges of misconduct, as required by the laws of the society, without notice or opportunity to be heard, and without proceedings; and that, by such expulsion, he was deprived of his right to participate in the benefits of the society, and the rights and privileges of a member. The complaint in the former action, which terminated in the judgment pleaded in bar, was based upon the same act of expulsion, and was the same in terms as the present, except that the only reason assigned for the wrongfulness of the expulsion was the absence of notice.

John W. Banks, for appellant. Robert L. Munger, for appellee.

PRENTICE, J. (after stating the facts as above). The ruling of the court that the cause of action upon which the former judgment pleaded in bar was rendered was the same as that set out in the complaint, and that, therefore, that judgment was a bar to the present action, was correct. A right of action at law arises from the existence of a primary right in the plaintiff, and an invasion of that right by some delict on the part of the defendant. The facts which establish the existence of that right and that delict constitute the cause of action. Wildman v. Wildman, 70 Conn. 700, 707, 41 Atl. 1. In the present action the plaintiff sets out as establishing and defining his primary right the fact of his membership in the defendant society, and its character as a benefit organization. Grand Lodge v. Grand Lodge, 81 Conn. 189, 205, 70 Atl. 617. The defendant's delict by which, as is charged, this right was invaded, is alleged to have been the plaintiff's wrongful exclusion from that membership. The primary right set out in the complaint in the former action was identically the same, and the...