Doljanin v. Austrian Benevolent Society

GRAY, C.

The plaintiff appeals from a judgment against him in an action brought to obtain a writ of mandate compelling defendant to reinstate plaintiff into the full

status

of membership in the respondent society.

[166]

The findings show that the appellant was duly tried Before a trial committee of respondent upon charges duly preferred, and after notice duly given him, and that on said trial the committee found appellant guilty of several offenses against the laws of said society and recommended that he be expelled from the same. Said committee duly filed their report, findings, and recommendations, together with a transcript of the evidence taken before it, with the society on March 14, 1899. The plaintiff filed no exceptions to said report, findings, or recommendations within the time allowed by the laws of said •society, or at all; and thereafter, on April 11, 1899, the society at a regular meeting took up and considered the said report, and took a ballot thereon, and the result of the ballot was then entered by the secretary of the society in its minutes, to the effect that the ballots of a

majority

of the members of the society then present was in favor of the expulsion of appellant from the society, and the appellant was thereupon treated by the society as expelled. All these proceedings were regular and in accordance with the laws of the society up to the vote of expulsion. The constitution of the society required a two-thirds affirmative vote of all the members present in order to expel a member. After this action of. the society appellant applied to the superior court for a writ of mandate to compel the society to reinstate him to membership, and upon this application the court, after a hearing, “ordered, adjudged, and decreed that the vote of said society purporting to expel the petitioner from the society was void, and that the society immediately reinstate the petitioner to membership in said society, to the extent that such membership existed immediately prior to such attempted expulsion.” The findings further state that thereafter, and

"

on June 27,1899, a meeting of said society was duly and regularly held; that all the officers and a quorum of the members of the society were present; that the society, in pursuance of and in accordance with said judgment, set aside the order and the entry on the minutes of said society made on the eleventh day of April, 1899, purporting to expel said petitioner as a member of said society, and then and there reinstated said petitioner as a member of said society as of the time immediately preceding said alleged expulsion on the eleventh day of April, 1899; “that thereupon said society proceeded to consider the said report of said