Meherin v. San Francisco Produce Exchange

McFarland, J. The plaintiffs constitute a partnership under the firm name of Meherin Brothers, and as such were a member of the defendant, which is a corporation very similar in its character and purposes to the other numerous produce exchanges throughout the country, described by Messrs. Bisbe and Simonds in their treatise on the “ Law of the Produce Exchange.” On November 12, 1884, the defendant, by a unanimous vote of its governing body, suspended the plaintiffs from membership privileges, until certain decisions recited in the resolution of suspension as having been made by the arbitration committee and the committee of appeals of the defendant should be complied with. On the [216]fourth day of June, 1892, the plaintiffs commenced this action for the purpose of having it adjudged that they were a member in good standing of the defendant, and entitled to all the rights, privileges, etc., of such member, and that the defendant corporation be adjudged to permit plaintiffs to exercise all their rights as a member thereof, and that plaintjffs also have judgment against defendant for twenty thousand dollars damages for exclusion from said privileges. The case was tried without a jury. The court made findings and rendered judgment for the defendant; and plaintiffs appeal from the judgment and from an order denying their motion for a new trial.'

A great deal of the testimony, most of the findings, and the main parts of the arguments and briefs of counsel were directed to certain matters which occurred on a trial of plaintiffs for an alleged violation of their duties as a member of the defendant before a certain arbitration committee and a committee on appeals of the defendant, and other matters touching the character and purpose of the defendant, its powers, the sufficiency of notices given appellants of the trial before said committees, etc. The findings of the court upon all of these matters were in favor of respondent, but we do not deem it necessary to follow counsel in their elaborate arguments of these points, because we think that the judgment must be affirmed for another reason. The court, among other things, found as follows: “That plaintiffs, and each of them, for more than seven and a half years after the said resolution of the board of directors of the corporation defendant suspending them from membership, acquiesced in such suspension, and took no steps whatever to set aside such suspension, and were and are guilty of laches in the premises, and that no fact or circumstance has been shown to the court tending to excuse the same, or to counteract the effect thereof.” The foregoing was among the findings of fact; and the court among its conclusions of law found: “That even if otherwise entitled to relief, plaintiffs are, and each of them is,