Court Opinion

ID: 9638016
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 15:30:03.841164+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:02.749564
License: Public Domain

*303Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Justice Roberts:
Eren a highly imaginative fiction writer would have considerable difficulty conceiving a procedure more futile, frustrating and meaningless than having an individual member appear before an International Convention, consisting of approximately 3,000 delegates, to present and argue his grievances against the leadership of the union, with the expectation of moving that body to hear, understand and decide the controversy on the merits. Such exposure to the convention arena is not a reasonable pursuit of a remedy; rather, it is a compelled involvement in a vast and undefined contest. The convention is not a tribunal conducive to the fair and impartial determination of a controversy. The customary protections, rights and rules .usually associated with the hearing and decisional process are totally absent. I see no reason why the litigant here should be required to travel such a hazardous and unproductive road. In no other instance is one seeking justice required to engage in such futility.
Surely, ordinary experience indicates that were a member to seek to avail himself of this doubtful opportunity to appear before such a massive forum to plead his cause, he would be engaging in a rather empty, burdensome and worthless exercise. To regard such a venture as anything but illusory is to ignore reality. No decision of this Court or any other authority requires such a result. This record does not sustain the majority’s conclusion that appellant failed to exhaust his internal union remedies.
I am also unable to share the majority’s interpretation of §101 (a) (4) of the Landrum-Griffin Act and the majority’s failure to apply it to this litigation. This section obviously does not alter the established substantive rule of this Commonwealth which requires exhaustion of internal union remedies. It does, however, make it unmistakably clear that “no labor organ*304ization” may delay the availability of such internal remedies for more than four months.
If appeal to the International Convention be regarded as a “remedy”, as the majority holds, then clearly its availability fails to comply with the statute, since that hearing procedure was postponed more than four months.1
I conclude, therefore, that appellant may not be denied relief in our courts. He has effectively exhausted all meaningful internal union remedies. Moreover, even if appeal to the International Convention be considered more than an empty gesture, as the majority holds, the Landrum-Griffin Act requires that such appeal be available within four months of the conclusion of the prior step in the appeal process.
I dissent.
Mr. Chief Justice Bell joins in this dissenting opinion.

 The Executive Board acted on January 20, 1962, and the International Convention was not scheduled to convene until the following September.