CLAIM DISMISSED

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 132, 7 June 1939, Page 17

CLAIM DISMISSED

CHAIRMAN'S ACTION

"The effect of this judgment is that an action for damages may lie against a chairman if a person has suffered damage from a wrongful decision come to dishonestly, but unless mala fides are proved the appropriate proceedings against the chairman are injunction and mandamus," said Mr. J. H. Luxford, S.M., in a reserved judgment delivered in the Magistrate's Court, holding that, the plaintiff. Mrs. Ivy Ellen Clarke, a waitress, had no claim against the Wellington Hotel, Club, and Restaurant Workers' Union. A nonsuit was entered, and the union allowed, costs.

The case arose from a meeting held on March 23 last to choose the union's delegate to the Easter Conference of the Federation of Labour and the New Zealand Labour Party. The plaintiff, who was represented by Mr. C. A. L. Treadwell, claimed £20 damages, alleging that she had been wrongfully deprived of her right of selection as a delegate. .The plaintiff alleged that the chairman of the meeting refused to accept her 'nomination, and ruled that she was n< 9 eligible for selection because she hat not paid her union dues to date.

Mr. F. W. Ongley appeared for the defendant union.

"There can be no doubt that the chairman's ruling was erroneous," said the Magistrate. "In the first place there is no rule disqualifying an unfinancial member from being elected as a delegate. In the second place, the plaitiff held a receipt which on its face disclosed that all dues owing by her had been paid to a date subsequent to that of the meeting. It is true that the plaintiff h.ad paid dues at a lower rate than that prescribed by the rules, but for many years she and all other part-time waitresses had been allowed to pay at the lower rate. Indeed, it was-stated that a resolution to that effect had been passed, though no record of it can now be found.

"It matters not, however, whether the plaintiff was an unfinancial member of the union at the time of the meeting. She has brought an action against the union based on the alleged wrongful act of the chairman of the meeting. In other words, she contends that the chairman of the general meeting of a body corporate is its agent, and that the body corporate is liable for his wrongful acts. In my opinion, this contention is not well founded. When the members of a body corporate gather together in a regularly convened general meeing, the inanimate body becomes animate. The resoluuois passed at the meeting are the resolutions of the corporation itself, not the resolutions of the members under a delegated authority. The basis of the relationship of principal and agent is the delegation of authority, and in no sense may the members in general meeting be deemed to be the agents of the body corporate."