Russell v. Central Labor Union

• Decision Date: 01 October 1924
• Docket Number: No. 38.,38.
• Citation: 1 F.2d 412
• Parties: RUSSELL v. CENTRAL LABOR UNION et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Illinois

1 F.2d 412 (1924)

RUSSELL v. CENTRAL LABOR UNION et al.

No. 38.

District Court, E. D. Illinois.

October 1, 1924.

Cassels, Potter & Bentley, of Chicago, Ill., and Charles Troup, of Danville, Ill., for plaintiff.

Acton, Acton & Snyder, of Danville, Ill., A. W. Kerr, of Chicago, Ill., and Geo. R. Stone, of Marion, Ill., for defendants.

LINDLEY, District Judge.

This is a suit against six labor unions and certain other defendants to recover damages for an alleged tort. The jurisdiction of this court is dependent upon diversity of citizenship.

In her declaration the plaintiff alleges that she is a citizen of the state of Missouri, that each of the labor unions are voluntary associations, who are citizens of Illinois, and the members of whom are citizens of Illinois, and that they are voluntary organizations of such character as to be suable. These alleged associations have filed separate pleas to the jurisdiction of the court, each alleging that not all of its members are citizens of the state of Illinois, but that in each instance certain members are citizens of states other than Illinois. Two of the pleas aver that the members who are alleged to be nonresidents of Illinois are citizens of the state of Missouri. To each of these pleas the plaintiff has filed a replication averring that each of the said associations is domiciled within the state of Illinois, has its office within the said state, functions therein, and confines its activities entirely to the said state. The replications further allege that the citizenship of the individual members of the associations is immaterial. To each of these replications the defendant associations have interposed a demurrer.

The question thus presented is whether or not a voluntary association, suable in the federal court, under the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of United Mine Workers of America et al. v. Coronado Coal Co. et al., 259 U. S. 344, 42 Sup. Ct. 570, 66 L. Ed. 975, 27 A. L. R. 762, may be brought into the United States District Court as party defendant upon a showing that it is domiciled and has its place of business within the state, and confines its activities to the said state, independent of the citizenship of its individual members, where the jurisdiction of the court depends solely upon an averment that the plaintiff is a citizen of a state other than that in which the associations are domiciled.

In the case of United Mine Workers of America v. Coronado Coal Co., supra, the Supreme Court distinctly and definitely held that such voluntary organizations are suable in the federal court, evidently reasoning that the entity created voluntarily by the members, in perfecting their organization, and carrying on multiplicitous activities through boards of directors and regularly elected officers, was such, in the light of federal legislation regarding such associations, so distinct and separate from the entities of its individual members that the courts will recognize the same and treat it as a distinct and separate legal entity apart from that of its individual members. Can we go a step further, and say that it follows logically that such a distinct legal entity is a citizen within the meaning of that word as recognized by the Supreme Court of the United States, in its various definitions of that term, in cases involving jurisdiction?

In Lafayette Ins. Co. v. French, 18 How. 404, 405, 15 L. Ed. 451, 452, which was an action brought by citizens of Ohio in the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Indiana, the declaration described the defendant as the "Lafayette Insurance Company, a citizen of the state of Indiana." The Supreme Court there said:

"This averment is not sufficient to show jurisdiction. It does not appear from it that the Lafayette Insurance Company is a corporation, or, if it be such, by the law of what state it was created. The averment that the company is a citizen of the state of Indiana can have no sensible meaning attached to it. This court does not hold that either a voluntary association of persons, or an association into a body politic, created by law, is a citizen of a state within the meaning of the Constitution. And therefore, if the defective averment in the declaration had not been otherwise supplied, the suit must have been dismissed." (The italics are those of this court.)

In the case of Chapman v. Barney, 129 U. S. 677, 9 Sup. Ct. 426, 32 L. Ed. 800, action was brought in the Circuit Court of the United States by the United States Express Company, upon an averment that the said company was a joint-stock company organized under a law of the state of New York and a citizen of that state. The Supreme Court held that these averments were not sufficient to show such diversity of citizenship as would under the Constitution confer jurisdiction upon the Federal Court. The court there said:

"The company may have been organized under the laws of the state of New York, and may be doing business in that state, and yet all the members of it may not be citizens of that state. The record does not show the citizenship of Barney, or of any of the members of the company. They are not shown to be citizens of some state other than Illinois."

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