Resignation of Officers

[Guest David Trykowski]

Hello All:

I've been a member of a Sportsmen's club for 20 years and mostly on the board.  President for two years and Treasurer the past 4.  Recently we had an incident that generated a letter of expulsion from a witnessing member against the member that broke our rules.  During the Exec board meeting his friends ganged up on the Officers with yelling, vulgarity and finger pointing in anger.  And they had the majority.  Actually one of the worst Board meeting I've ever been too.  So the President and I resigned in writing next day.  I also wrote a Written letter of complaint demanding the 4 Board members that caused the trouble to be removed from their positions due to unsportsmanlike conduct and rules broken in RONR .  My letter was thrown out.  Now their stating that if the general membership doesn't approve my resignation I have to stay.  By being disrespected and hated by these members there is no way I'm staying in office with them.  Am I stuck?  Thoughts? Dave T.

[Joshua Katz]

Just now, Guest David Trykowski said:

Now their stating that if the general membership doesn't approve my resignation I have to stay.

Question: what exactly do they mean by this?  In legislative bodies, there is something known as "call of the house," where, lacking a quorum, members are arrested and brought to the meeting.  In an ordinary organization, such an effort would be called "kidnapping."  Clearly they can't do that.

What they might be able to do (and this is why I ask) is say that, by not accepting your resignation, you are not allowed to go on and be an "ordinary member."  A resignation is a request to be excused from duties, and if not granted, it could interfere with your membership rights.  For more details, please see pp. 289-92.  But we can say definitively that you are not "stuck" in the sense of having to remain in the organization.

[David Trykowski]

Basically the board is hostile.  I want to resign as Treasurer but stay as a regular member.  Since Treasurer dues was free I paid the current membership rate to be in the club.  

[Joshua Katz]

Okay, so you don't want to leave the organization.  Rather, you just want to give up your board position.  Unfortunately, according to the rules in RONR, whoever is empowered to accept resignations is not obligated to do so, and can require you to serve out your term or face disciplinary action up to expulsion from the club.  However, you have the right to seek said permission from the general membership - the board can't stand between you and the membership by throwing away your resignation letters.

[Josh Martin]

23 hours ago, Guest David Trykowski said:

I also wrote a Written letter of complaint demanding the 4 Board members that caused the trouble to be removed from their positions due to unsportsmanlike conduct and rules broken in RONR .  My letter was thrown out.  Now their stating that if the general membership doesn't approve my resignation I have to stay.  By being disrespected and hated by these members there is no way I'm staying in office with them.  Am I stuck?

It is correct that the resignation must be accepted in order to be final, but the society obviously cannot force you to continue performing the duties of Treasurer against your will. The primary purpose of rejecting a resignation is if it is intended to remove the officer through disciplinary procedures instead. After there has been a reasonable opportunity for the resignation to be accepted, you are no longer obligated to perform the duties of office.

“The duties of a position must not be abandoned until a resignation has been accepted and becomes effective, or at least until there has been a reasonable opportunity for it to be accepted.” (RONR, 11th ed., pg. 291)

20 hours ago, Joshua Katz said:

Okay, so you don't want to leave the organization.  Rather, you just want to give up your board position.  Unfortunately, according to the rules in RONR, whoever is empowered to accept resignations is not obligated to do so, and can require you to serve out your term or face disciplinary action up to expulsion from the club.

Based on the sentence cited above, I‘m not sure about this claim that the officer may be required to serve out his term.

20 hours ago, Joshua Katz said:

However, you have the right to seek said permission from the general membership - the board can't stand between you and the membership by throwing away your resignation letters.

It also may be the case that the board is empowered to fill vacancies, which would also mean that the board may accept resignations. That is, the board’s claim that the general membership must act on the resignation may not be accurate.

Additionally, it looks like the OP wrote two letters - one for his resignation and one demanding the removal of other board members. It seems possible that only the second letter was thrown out.

Edited May 9, 2018 at 06:33 PM by Josh Martin

[Guest Dave Try]

Thanks for your replies:  Keeping me as Treasurer against my will, in a hostile environment, and forcing me to do a job and serve them, Seems unconstitutional and against, I would bet, my right(s) as a citizen of this country.  My question is RORN used as just a guild line and/or has some of these rules been challenged in court?  Let's face it people resign from boards all the time probably everyday in fact.  As an update.  The monthly meeting was packed with members.  I stopped the resignation votes on the floor when I found out they had a private board meeting without me and the other three board members who resigned.  We deemed that meeting Illegal and stuck the minutes from the record.  So now a new Board Meeting is scheduled and the 4 board member letter is back on the table. 

 

[Joshua Katz]

1 hour ago, Guest Dave Try said:

Keeping me as Treasurer against my will, in a hostile environment, and forcing me to do a job and serve them, Seems unconstitutional and against, I would bet, my right(s) as a citizen of this country. 

Nobody could do that.  Literally.  The only question between me and Mr. Martin is whether the organization can kick you out.  We don't allow slavery in this country.  It is not unconstitutional, though, to say "either stick with the job or quit the organization."  If the proposal were to chain you to a desk until the books were completed, that wouldn't be unconstitutional either, but would likely be illegal.

1 hour ago, Guest Dave Try said:

My question is RORN used as just a guild line and/or has some of these rules been challenged in court? 

I don't know what you mean by a "guild line."  Where an applicable procedural law takes precedence, if RONR claimed to apply anyway (which it doesn't), that would be a losing argument in court.  There have been cases on parliamentary issues, primarily in parties and in corporations.  For the most part, courts are unwilling to challenge parliamentary decisions except where a law applies (including common law).  In one case, for instance, a meeting was properly called and noticed according to the organization's own parliamentary rules, but the court (Del. Sup. Ct.) held that the actions taken at the meeting were invalid because a board member who was also a controlling shareholder wasn't given enough notice to prevent himself from being removed from the board, and could have with more notice.  That case had other oddities, though, such as a lawyer who was clearly conflicted and gave incorrect advice on the bylaws to this board member. 

1 hour ago, Guest Dave Try said:

Let's face it people resign from boards all the time probably everyday in fact. 

I don't think anyone has suggested otherwise.  We've all been quite clear that you can leave your position (and that to maintain otherwise would be ludicrous).  The only question is what happens to your organizational standing when you do.

 

1 hour ago, Guest Dave Try said:

The monthly meeting was packed with members.  I stopped the resignation votes on the floor when I found out they had a private board meeting without me and the other three board members who resigned.  We deemed that meeting Illegal and stuck the minutes from the record.

I don't really follow any of this.  Is the monthly meeting a board meeting or a membership meeting?  Why would a previous "private board meeting" stop this meeting, and what has it got to do with the resignation votes?  It is contradictory for the board to maintain that you are still in office as your resignation has not been accepted while not including you in board meetings.  Is your board empowered to hold special meetings?  Was this "private meeting" an actual meeting, as in one where business is conducted, as opposed to a group of people chatting at a bar?

[Guest Who's Coming to Dinner]

2 hours ago, Guest Dave Try said:

Keeping me as Treasurer against my will, in a hostile environment, and forcing me to do a job and serve them, Seems unconstitutional and against, I would bet, my right(s) as a citizen of this country.

Such drama. Mr. Martin gave you the correct answer above: "After there has been a reasonable opportunity for the resignation to be accepted, you are no longer obligated to perform the duties of office." He is talking about an obligation of honor. Your legal rights are best reviewed with a lawyer, not a parliamentarian.

[Josh Martin]

On 5/10/2018 at 8:50 AM, Guest Dave Try said:

Keeping me as Treasurer against my will, in a hostile environment, and forcing me to do a job and serve them, Seems unconstitutional and against, I would bet, my right(s) as a citizen of this country.

Well, that is beyond the scope of this forum. As noted above, it does go against Robert’s Rules to force you to continue to serve.

On 5/10/2018 at 8:50 AM, Guest Dave Try said:

My question is RORN used as just a guild line and/or has some of these rules been challenged in court?

RONR is not used just as a guideline. It is binding upon assemblies which have adopted it as their parliamentary authority. I do not know whether the rules have been challenged in court (probably, since just about everything gets challenged in court), but in any event, such questions are beyond the scope of this forum. If you are seeking legal advice, you need to talk to a lawyer.

On 5/10/2018 at 8:50 AM, Guest Dave Try said:

Let's face it people resign from boards all the time probably everyday in fact.

Yes, and the proper course of action in such a case is for the board (or the membership, depending on the circumstances) to act to accept the resignation. Normally, this isn’t a big deal. The chair asks if there is any objection to accepting the resignation, no one objects, and everyone moves on with their lives.

There are a number of unusual circumstances which may arise in regard to this. Most commonly, the members wish to deny the resignation in order to take disciplinary action instead (which they are within their rights to do) or to express their wish for the member to continue in his position (and if the member still indicates it is his wish to resign, the resignation is then accepted). We also had one particularly unusual case on this forum in which the organization wished to deny the resignation (with the understanding that the officer would not actually be required to perform the duties of the office) due to the fact that some rules of the organization in regard to how vacancies are filled depended on when exactly the vacancy occurred.

This is a new one to me, in which the organization somehow proposes to actually force you to continue to perform your duties. Frankly, I recommend simply telling them “no,” and see what happens next.

On 5/10/2018 at 8:50 AM, Guest Dave Try said:

I stopped the resignation votes on the floor when I found out they had a private board meeting without me and the other three board members who resigned.  We deemed that meeting Illegal and stuck the minutes from the record.  So now a new Board Meeting is scheduled and the 4 board member letter is back on the table. 

It was correct to deem that the meeting was invalid. Since the resignations have not yet been accepted, you and the other board members are still members of the board, and still have a right to be informed of and attend board meetings. If not all members are informed of a special meeting, the meeting is not properly called and is invalid. Generally speaking, minutes should still be kept even when something improper happens, but I suppose in this case it may well have been correct to strike the minutes, since minutes are only taken of meetings and this was not a meeting.

As to this letter demanding the removal of the four board members, check your rules regarding removal or, if there are none, see FAQ #20.

On 5/10/2018 at 11:17 AM, Guest Who's Coming to Dinner said:

Such drama. Mr. Martin gave you the correct answer above: "After there has been a reasonable opportunity for the resignation to be accepted, you are no longer obligated to perform the duties of office." He is talking about an obligation of honor. Your legal rights are best reviewed with a lawyer, not a parliamentarian.

Well, I do not think that I am speaking strictly of an obligation of honor, although it is certainly correct that I am not speaking of legal obligations.

As I understand the rules on this subject, someone who has accepted an office is, as a parliamentary matter, obliged to perform the duties of that office. If he then submits a resignation, he is expected to continue to perform the duties of that office until the resignation is accepted or, as an alternative, until there has been a reasonable opportunity for it to be accepted. I assume the latter part of that is to avoid situations exactly like this one. The text does not permit the officer to immediately relieve himself of the duties of office, as this could cause substantial harm to the society.

Based on these rules, it seems to me that if an officer abandoned his duties prior to his resignation being accepted (or at least there being a reasonable opportunity for the resignation to be accepted), it would be proper to discipline the member in question. On the other hand, if the officer faithfully performs his duties up until his resignation is accepted (or at least until there has been a reasonable opportunity for the resignation to be accepted) then I do not think it would be proper to discipline the member for failing to perform the duties of office after that point.

Based on the facts presented, it is not clear to me how much time has passed since the resignation was submitted or whether the board is the proper body to accept the resignation, so I cannot definitively answer whether there has been a reasonable opportunity for the resignation to be accepted in this instance.

Edited May 11, 2018 at 11:28 PM by Josh Martin

[David Trykowski]

Again thank you for your time to respond to my situation. Mr. Martin excellent long and through responses.   Well It’s a mess.  The President resigned when I did and the VP resigned at last Tuesday’s regular scheduled monthly membership meeting.  I’ve taken back my laptop and office supplies a will continue as Treasurer.  Your right I was harming the society and stuck them no one to pay bills, sign checks and collect money, etc.  20 years of being mostly on the board, this one takes the cake.  Next Monday is another board meeting.  Let’s see if we can resolve our troubles.

Dave T.

 

[Guest Zev]

I don't understand why the Executive Board took up the complaint in the first place. Is it the Executive Board's job to discipline members? If not, then why didn't the complaining member take his case to the assembly and follow the rules as suggested by RONR? Would this procedure not been more conducive to keeping the peace? And if it was the Executive Board's job what was wrong with submitting a report on this situation to the assembly and let them sort this out?