discipline of member and trustee

[Guest club members]

Just received 2 certified disciplinary letters in mail following a verbal altercation with 2 other club members. My letter indicates 90 day suspension yet in bylaws, first offense is to be a warning. Companion trustee letter was only a warning but removal from position as a trustee. Having just purchased RONR 11th edition in addition to reviewing the club's own bylaws, I believe I understand that neither of these letters would be in accordance with parliamentary law and due process. However, I do have the following questions which I hope someone can clarify:

1. Bylaws state the duties of the president include ..."inflict penalties, see that laws are carried in effect..." but letter came from 5 other trustees whose duties include , ONLY, "appoint and hire a steward/stewardess who shall be subject to their directions and regulations. So, did trustees have the right to inflict punishment on myself and remove another trustee from the board?

2. We will be pointing out the negligence on their part of following due process and conducting an investigation and trial as outlined in RONR (which the bylaws do indicate as a reference. In a formal letter addressed to the board, we will simply be asking for 90 day suspension to become the 'first offense warning" and for my companion to be reinstated as a trustee. The question is, if the social club does not respond to our request, what legal options do we have outside of this club regarding the violations of our rights? To whoms attention would we bring this to: lawyer. magistrate LCB?

3. Can this social club continue to serve alcohol under a Club license (in PA) if they are not following the bylaws, nor do they have the 13 members required to serve on the board? Currently, they have 9 positions filled out of 13, with one person assuming (as they say "filling in") for 3 of them.

[Chris Harrison]

1) Without seeing your bylaws in their entirety there is no way to say for sure (but don't post them here because bylaw interpretation is beyond this forum's purview). However, generally speaking a single person doesn't have the authority to act for the organization unless the bylaws grant that authority. But is it possible that the Board voted on the discipline and those five who voted for it signed their names to the letter so what were seeing was an official act of the Board and not of five individual members?

2,3) Questions of law are beyond this forum's scope so I would recommend you all ask a lawyer.

[Guest club members]

Thanks for taking the time to review the post. I certainly do not intend to post the bylaws because I am very capable of interpretting them fairly accurately as they are written for others on the board that can not so easliy interpret such language. I did not mean to imply that the reprimand came from a single person. The letter was from 5 trustees (minus the trustee position of my companion) as a result of a private 'special meeting' (private to them alone) that was called the morning following the evening of the incident. This meeting occurred between these 5 trustees alone. It was not handled or motioned at a monthly scheduled meeting. Additionally, the verbal altercation became physical when one of the club members (not board members) pushed the trustee and trustee stood with hands behind back (witnesses will concur). No such 'special meeting' was held to punish the other 2 offenders involved in this incident and to my knowledge, they have not had any form of reprimand since other club members have seen them in the club. For some reason, the trustees of this establishment believe they hold all the power to make all decisions, without regard to referencing their own bylaws, nor RONR referneced in these bylaws.

[Guest Nancyt N.]

(Sticking to Original Poster, Club Members', initial numbering system, which helps keep questions and answers clearly separate)

1. But Club Members, your first question is, actually, a question of interpreting your bylaws. Sure, you could ask this question of literally anyone; but, perhaps uniquely on Earth, the correspondents on this, the world's premier parliamentary Intenet forum, are boliged to steer clear of doing so. Otherwise Chris H would doubtless have ventured an opinion. I do recommend you put this one over on the nearby bylaws-discussion forum.

1 (a). If these five trustees met without conferring with the other trustees, then whatever they decided has no authority from the club whatsoever (unless your bylaws have some bizarre provisions). (This about the "special meeting".)

1 (. Club Members, FROM WHOM did the two disciplinary letters come? Someone with the actual authority to issue them, or from these five acting-on-their-own trustees?

1 ©. I don't understand your third sentence (of the first post): was the word "not" dropped out, so that "was only a warning but removal" should have read, "was NOT only a warning, but removal"?

2. Again, interpretation of the bylaws comes into it: "Bylaws state the duties of the president include ..."inflict penalties, see that laws are carried in effect..."" can, by interpretation, be the bylaws-prescribed disciplinary procedures, and, perforce, the entirety of legitimate due process.

2 (a). Why write a letter asking for anything? If the board (or membership) has no authority to suspend one board member and remove another, why not insist on it? You request what they have the right to grant -- you don't request what they had no right to remove in the first place.

2 (. Not to mention that if the suspension and removal came from a couple of dingbats acting on their own, you don't have to be asking for anything from anybody. !

3. I don't agree with Chris that Question 3 is completely a legal question. --

3 (a). Do the bylaws, or other rules of the organization itself (leaving alone any PA laws that may apply) say anything about serving alcohol?

3 (. What's all this separate information about membership on the board? Club Members, you may very well, and possibly well justified, be steamed, but don't stack issues onto each other. Probably if the board is without some seats filled, it can still act -- but whether that is so depends on a lot of information that has not been forthcoming.

3 ( (1). What in Sam Hill is this about one board member supposedly occupying four seats??!?

(Yes you might need a lawyer, but you might also want to engage a parliamentarian: there are distinct parliamentary issues here, but not such that you can get it all straightened out on the Internet. Not even on the world's premier parliamentary Internet forum.)

[Guest Nancy N.]

(Ooo, I got to remember about those automatic smiley-faces on a "b" in parentheses. Great Steaming Cobnuts, the humiliation.)

[Trina]

Just received 2 certified disciplinary letters in mail following a verbal altercation with 2 other club members. My letter indicates 90 day suspension yet in bylaws, first offense is to be a warning. Companion trustee letter was only a warning but removal from position as a trustee. Having just purchased RONR 11th edition in addition to reviewing the club's own bylaws, I believe I understand that neither of these letters would be in accordance with parliamentary law and due process. However, I do have the following questions which I hope someone can clarify:

1. Bylaws state the duties of the president include ..."inflict penalties, see that laws are carried in effect..." but letter came from 5 other trustees whose duties include , ONLY, "appoint and hire a steward/stewardess who shall be subject to their directions and regulations. So, did trustees have the right to inflict punishment on myself and remove another trustee from the board?

...The letter was from 5 trustees (minus the trustee position of my companion) as a result of a private 'special meeting' (private to them alone) that was called the morning following the evening of the incident. This meeting occurred between these 5 trustees alone.

Do the trustees form a body which has the right (per bylaws) to call special meetings? If so, were notice (time) requirements in the bylaws followed (calling a special meeting with less than 24 hours notice would not meet the notice requirements found in most bylaws). Even if the bylaws authorize special meetings of the trustees, and even if the notice time requirement was met, the meeting would still be invalid unless all members of the body were given notice. If C (short for the person you repeatedly describe as 'companion') is a member of the trustees, then C must receive notice of a special meeting, just like all the other members of the body. A failure to include all members in the notice would be a fatal flaw, and business conducted at such a meeting is null and void. (RONR p. 251 ( e )).

2. We will be pointing out the negligence on their part of following due process and conducting an investigation and trial as outlined in RONR (which the bylaws do indicate as a reference.

If your bylaws describe a disciplinary process (and the quoted language about the President 'inflicting' things on members suggests they might) then the disciplinary process in the bylaws supersedes whatever is said in RONR. If the bylaws do describe a disciplinary process, the bylaws should be followed (there is no guarantee that a process described in the bylaws will have any requirements for fairness, due process, etc.).

In a formal letter addressed to the board, we will simply be asking for 90 day suspension to become the 'first offense warning" and for my companion to be reinstated as a trustee. The question is, if the social club does not respond to our request, what legal options do we have outside of this club regarding the violations of our rights? To whoms attention would we bring this to: lawyer. magistrate LCB?

Legal issues are outside the purview of this forum. Note that, for most organizations we encounter here, the general membership is the superior body -- i.e. an appeal to the general membership would be a 'step up' from an appeal to the board. Whether that is the case in your organization is perhaps a question you could consider. (Note that I'm using 'appeal' in a colloquial way here, not to indicate some formally defined process)

Thanks for taking the time to review the post. I certainly do not intend to post the bylaws because I am very capable of interpretting them fairly accurately as they are written for others on the board that can not so easliy interpret such language.

If interpretation of the bylaws becomes necessary during the conduct of business, the interpretation is up to the membership, not any one person. You may want to look at pp. 588-591 for some principles of interpretation.

Additionally, the verbal altercation became physical when one of the club members (not board members) pushed the trustee and trustee stood with hands behind back (witnesses will concur). No such 'special meeting' was held to punish the other 2 offenders involved in this incident and to my knowledge, they have not had any form of reprimand since other club members have seen them in the club. For some reason, the trustees of this establishment believe they hold all the power to make all decisions, without regard to referencing their own bylaws, nor RONR referneced in these bylaws.

The trustee who was pushed is the same member 'C'? Not a parliamentary question -- I'm just trying to get the facts straight. So there were 4 people involved in the altercation -- you and C on one side, so to speak, and 2 others on the other side?

Regardless of the perceived unfairness of the fact that the other 2 participants may not have received reprimands, I think the question to focus on is that the penalties that were handed out (to you and C) are quite likely null and void, if they are the product of an invalid meeting.

I'm fairly certain Nancy N already made a number of these points, but I'm too distracted by all the B) to be sure.