Redden v. Ramsey

• Decision Date: 28 May 1941
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court
• Parties: EZRA N. REDDEN v. W. S. RAMSEY & others.

309 Mass. 225

34 N.E.2d 648

EZRA N. REDDEN v. W. S. RAMSEY & others.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

May 28, 1941

April 11, 1941.

Present: FIELD, C.

J., LUMMUS, QUA DOLAN, & COX, JJ.

Voluntary Association. Practice, Civil, Case stated, Requests, rulings and instructions.

An action in a District Court heard on an agreed statement of facts was a case stated, and requests for rulings had no standing.

A by-law of a voluntary association of employees of a railroad corporation formed to assist members when suspended by the corporation that no benefits should be received by a member suspended for the use of intoxicating liquor, did not apply to bar the recovery of benefits by one suspended for the sole stated reason of absence from duty without authority, although the cause of his absence, not shown to have been known to the corporation, was his arrest and confinement for drunkenness while off duty.

CONTRACT. Writ in the Municipal Court of the City of Boston dated April 24 1940.

The action was heard by Donovan, J. W. J. Walsh, Jr., for the defendants.

A. L. Kaplan, for the plaintiff, submitted a brief.

DOLAN, J. This is an action of contract brought to recover certain benefits provided for in the by-laws of an unincorporated and voluntary association composed of firemen and enginemen employed by a certain railroad company. The defendants are the trustees and officers of the association. The judge heard the case on an agreed statement of facts and found for the defendants. The case now comes before us on their appeal from the order of the Appellate Division that judgment be entered for the plaintiff against each of the defendants.

The object of the association as set forth in article 2 of its constitution and by-laws is ". . . to assist brother members when suspended . . ." by the company for any reasons except those stated in article 9; and by article 10 payments shall be made at the rate of $4 a day, not exceeding six days a week for a period not to exceed sixty days, payments to be made weekly. Article 9 provides that "No one shall receive benefits who is suspended or discharged for the use of intoxicating liquors or larceny from the Company."

On or about February 10, 1939, the plaintiff was suspended by the "Company" for thirty days for violation of rule # 725 of the "Book of Rules of the Operating Company," which reads as follows: "No employee will be allowed to absent himself from duty without proper authority, nor will any employee be allowed to engage a substitute to perform his duties." The failure of the plaintiff to report for duty, which resulted in his suspension, "was due to the fact that he was arrested for drunkenness, found guilty, and committed to jail therefor, while off duty and not in any manner engaged in the course of his employment or upon the premises of the `Company.'" The parties stipulated that if the plaintiff was entitled to recover, judgment was to be entered for him against each of the defendants in the sum of $104, together with costs and interest.

At the close of the evidence, the plaintiff filed six requests for rulings which were denied by the judge, who found "that the primary cause of the absence of the plaintiff from duty without proper authority was the use of intoxicating liquor and that his said absence, thus caused, resulted in his suspension from work." The judge ruled that the plaintiff [was] "not entitled to recover" and found for the defendants. As the plaintiff claimed to be aggrieved by the denial of his requests for rulings and by the judge's "finding," the judge reported the case to the Appellate Division for...