Court Opinion

ID: 9829984
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 19:47:32.598878+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:03:46.086620
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Behearing.
In their motion for rehearing appellees strenuously insist that this court erred in its original opinion in the following particulars, to wit; First. In considering appellants’ first and second assignments, because they are top general. Second. In reversing and rendering this cause, because the evidence is conflicting. Third. Because the record shows that the evidence in behalf of appellees was not fully developed on the trial, they having introduced no testimony. Fourth. In the finding of the fact by this court that “the change in-the name from the F. E. & O. U. of A. to F. E. & O. U. of T. was ratified by a majority of all the local unions of Texas, upon a referendum vote.” Fifth. In holding, in substance, that the acceptance of a charter from the F. E. & 0. U. of T. was a repudiation and surrender of the charter theretofore obtained from the F. E. & C. U. of A.
[3] Taking these specifications in reverse order, we still adhere to the holding that the acceptance of a charter under the Texas organization was, in effect, a surrender of the charter granted by the national organization. The state organization had been formed as an intermediate body between the national organization and the local unions, and had been accepted by the national organization as such, and paid dues to the national body, and was supported by dues paid to it by the various local unions. A “charter” is the authority by virtue of which an organized body acts, and, in case of any conflict arising out of the exercise of the functional authority granted by two charters, certainly the last charter accepted would prevail.
As to the finding by this court that the change in name “had been ratified by a majority vote of all the local unions, etc.,” W. D. Lewis, president of the F. E. & 0. U. of T., testified that the constitution of said Texas organization, containing the change in name, had been adopted by the entire membership of the state (S. F. p. 4), and that “this printed copy of the constitution and bylaws is the law that governs the local, county, and district unions in Texas” (S. F. p. 6). This evidence as to the adoption of the new constitution and by-laws was, as far as we have been able to determine, uncontroverted.
[4] As to the alleged error of this court in reversing and rendering judgment, rather than in reversing and remanding for new trial, because the appellant introduced no evidence in .the court below, as complained of in the third specification in motion for rehearing, there is nothing in the record to show that defendants in the court below had any evidence which they were denied the right to introduce. They filed no motion for continuance, or at any time indicated the existence of any evidence not given on the trial. One of the principal witnesses for the plaintiffs was G. B. Stracener, one of the defendants, whom the defense had ample opportunity to cross-examine, and the process of the court was open to the defense to secure any other testimony desired. That the evidence upon some matters was conflicting, as alleged in the second specification, would not make improper a judgment by this court which .rendered judgment for appellants, if such action was sufficiently supported by uncontroverted evidence upon the material issues, or by the allegations in the verified pleadings of plaintiffs and not denied by defendants’ answer.
Plaintiffs alleged in their verified petition that the plaintiffs were the duly elected and acting officers or directors of the Gorman District Union of Texas, and that certain named plaintiffs constituted the executive committee, who, as such, were entitled to the custody and control of the described property and the funds arising by reason of the operation of the warehouse, and that plaintiffs were the legal custodians of the books, papers, etc., belonging to said district union; and there is no dispute that there was a bylaw to that effect.
[6] The plaintiffs and the defendants are members of the same organization. If that organization obtained a charter, which was improper, and is attempting to exercise, through the plaintiffs, rights and powers under and by virtue of that charter, defendants are in no position to complain, since as members of the corporation they are bound by its terms, as also by its by-laws under which plaintiffs claim. It is not contended that the plaintiffs have violated any of the by-laws of the organization or any of its charter provisions, nor that the plaintiffs were not elected in accordance with its bylaws, nor that by the terms of the by-laws plaintiffs are not given right of possession and control of the property for which the plaintiffs sue. In the absence of such showing, the acts of the organization through the plaintiffs, as its officers, are binding upon the defendants. This conclusion of itself furnishes a sufficient reason for a reversal of the *960judgment, and the question here discussed, we think, is sufficiently raised under appellants’ twelfth and thirteenth assignments of error, wherein complaint is made of the action of the court in overruling appellants’ motion for a new trial, one of the grounds of which presents, substantially, that question, irrespective of the first and second assignments mentioned in the original opinion.
The motion is overruled.