Ryan v. Knights of Columbus

• Decision Date: 14 April 1909
• Citation: 72 A. 574,82 Conn. 91
• Parties: RYAN v. KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS et al.
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court

72 A. 574

82 Conn. 91

RYAN

v. KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS et al.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

April 14, 1909.

Appeal from District Court of Waterbury; George H. Cowell, Judge.

Action by Edward Ryan against the Knights of Columbus and another. From a judgment for defendants, plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

John O'Neill and William Kennedy, for appellant. Joseph C. Pelletier and James T. Meskill, for appellees.

PRENTICE , J. The plaintiff, acting for himself and numerous others alleged to be similarly situated and having the same rights as himself, seeks an accounting by the defendant corporation with respect to two funds, together amounting on January 1, 1902, to $616,365, accumulated by it during a period of years out of the contributions of its members, for the purposes of the corporation and pursuant to its by-laws, and judgment for the amount to which upon such accounting he should be found to be entitled. The defendant Watson is made a defendant as representing the many members of the defendant corporation whose interests are alleged to be adverse to those of the plaintiff and those he represents. Both defendants appeared. The complaint contains a statement of the facts upon which the plaintiff relies. The defendants challenged by demurrer the sufficiency of the facts thus presented. The question before us is whether or not the trial court erred in holding, as it did, that the facts set up failed to establish the plaintiff's right to the accounting and judgment asked for. Our answer to this question is one which must be controlled entirely by the information afforded by the complaint. That information cannot be supplemented by facts which may be within our personal, but not within our judicial, knowledge, nor by facts which the parties stipulate may be accepted as true. The demurrer admits the facts averred, and no others; and there is no way known to the law whereby other facts may be imported into the issue tendered by the demurrer, or whereby that issue can become any other than one as to the sufficiency of the allegations of the complaint as they are made. For this reason we are unable to utilize, as it has been suggested that we should, information which may have come to us in other litigation; and for the same reason we, at the time of the argument, ordered stricken from the files a stipulation intended to enlarge our sources of information upon the matters involved.

The complaint alleges that the Knights of Columbus is a fraternal benefit order incorporated by the General Assembly of this state. Its charter and the amendments thereto are embodied in the complaint by reference. It thus appears that it is a corporation endowed with the ordinary corporate powers, that its purposes are those usual to fraternal benefit bodies, that it is authorized "to establish, accumulate, and maintain a reserve or other fund in such amount and in such manner as it may determine" for the purpose of rendering aid and assistance to its members, and that it is given power to make and adopt "a constitution and by-laws, rules and regulations" for its government and that of its members, and for the management and protection of its property and funds, and from time to time to alter and amend the same. A few of the by-laws which have from time to time been adopted...