Court Opinion

ID: 9633886
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 12:05:12.832753+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:08:44.795492
License: Public Domain

CARTER, J.
I concur in the judgment of affirmance. Here the court agrees with my dissent in Holderby v. International Union etc. Engrs., 45 Cal.2d 843, 849 [291 P.2d 463], and I adhere to the views there expressed. This decision in effect overrules the Holderby case. The only distinction between the cases is that in the Holderby case the expulsion of a member from a union was involved while here the inspection of the union’s financial records is sought by a member. In fact, this case is less strong for not applying the exhaustion of union remedies than was the situation in the Holderby case, as in the latter, the ability to find employment was involved. Since the plaintiff there had lost his membership in the union it was gravely doubtful that he could obtain employment—the means of making a living, while in this ease the consequences are far less serious, that is, a failure to obtain inspection of the records. If we must, as is said by the majority, “weigh both the protection of the rights of the individual members in the specific matter involved and the right of the union to govern itself” then the scales are more heavily balanced in favor of not requiring exhaustion of remedies within the union in the Holderby case than here. Moreover, whether or not a person retains his union membership is of less consequence to the union than whether its records shall be inspected. Those records go to the heart of the whole internal organization of the union more than whether one person does or does not retain his membership.
To my mind there can be no justification for requiring a member of an organization to exhaust his remedy in the organization when he is denied a legal right as obvious as the one to which he is here entitled or the one in the Holderby case.