Jones v. San Bernardino Real Estate Board

MUSSELL, J.

This is an action in which plaintiff, a part-time real estate salesman, sought to recover damages for loss of commissions, contacts, business associations and clientele alleged to have been occasioned by his wrongful expulsion as a salesman member of the San Bernardino Real Estate Board. The San Bernardino Real Estate Building Board Association was joined as a defendant on the theory that it was the

alter ego

of defendant San Bernardino Real Estate Board. The cause was tried by the court without a jury and plaintiff appeals from the judgment that he take nothing by reason of his complaint.

The San Bernardino Real Estate Board is a nonprofit corporation with five classes of membership, including brokers and salesmen. A real estate salesman to be eligible to membership therein must be licensed and employed by a broker member. Plaintiff Jones during December, 1953, obtained employment as a part-time real estate salesman with Robert Mudge, a broker in San Bernardino, and thereafter applied for membership and became a salesman member of the San Bernardino Real Estate Board. At this time there was no requirement that he be employed as a real estate salesman on a full-time basis. He was and continued to be employed on a full-time basis in the newspaper business at Corona, California, working for Mudge Saturdays, Sundays and evenings from December, 1953, until July, 1955, when he was discharged by Mudge.

On June 21, 1954, the issue of part-time employment was submitted to the membership of the real estate board for action, after notices had been sent out to the members, including plaintiff, that there be a vote on the question. On the last

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mentioned date section 2 of article III of the by-laws were amended to provide as follows:

“Broker members of this organization shall not employ salesmen or broker associates as salesmen, on a part-time basis.

“A part-time salesman or broker associate is one who is engaged in a line of work other than real estate, or a line not allied to real estate, for financial gain and for a major part of his time.