Aggressive Meeting - Out of Order

[Michelle]

I am the newest elected member of the board. At my first meeting we had an agenda. We followed it. There was discussion about a certain topic. There were no motions needing to be made. The president simply stated their opinion about this topic and I said, "I do not agree." This turned into me trying to explain why. Long story short the president got very angry, stood up, pointed across the table at me and shouted, "YOU ARE OUT OF ORDER" and ran out of the room slamming the door. The president did come back to the meeting and we continued to follow the agenda. The president was very hostile towards me the entire meeting, including telling me it was their job to tell me I was out of order and then spent the the rest of the time on their phone emailing me various documents, including Robert's Rules of Order. None of which needed to be done right then, not even that day.

I am not new to Robert's Rules of Order. I have used it in many group meetings. My question here is, there was no motion being presented. The topic being discussed at the moment wasn't on the agenda per se. The president was chiming in and stating their opinion, as did I. So was I out of order? What about the president's display of behavior?

[Guest Puzzling]

Welcome to this forum.

For a starter did you get height up to date version of Roberts rules of order? 

The current edition is the 12th and I don't  think the version you were send was the right one (better buy 2 copies and give one to the chair , then at least  you are both speaking from the right  hymn sheet) 

For yourself also get the in brief version as introduction and as index (not as reference only the big book is that) 

Then what all happened was not according to Roberts rules on more points than I care to mention. 

About the president she was surely out of order, do investigate what the other boardmembers think of it.

[Guest Trevor]

Has the Board formally adopted Robert's Rules? What does the Board's constitution state? In the absence of anything binding the Board procedurally, then the Chair would be able to manage the Board as she sees fit, but as she worked so hard to justify her actions, it would appear that she is not confident in her powers as Chair. Stick to your guns, and call the Chair to order. Even if she had the power to call you out of order, her behaviour indicates her unsuitability to hold the position.

[Josh Martin]

1 hour ago, Michelle said:

including telling me it was their job to tell me I was out of order

So this part, at least, is true... provided, of course, it is correct that there is actually a violation of order. Even in such cases, however, the matter should be handled more tactfully.

"(He must not say, “You are out of order,” nor, “Your motion is out of order.” To state that a member is out of order implies that the member is guilty of a breach of decorum or other misconduct in a meeting; and even in such a case, the chair does not normally address the member in the second person." RONR (12th ed.) 4:17

So even assuming it was correct that the statements were out of order, the chair would say something like "The statements are not in order at this time, because..." or perhaps "The member is not in order, because..."

1 hour ago, Michelle said:

I am not new to Robert's Rules of Order. I have used it in many group meetings. My question here is, there was no motion being presented. The topic being discussed at the moment wasn't on the agenda per se. The president was chiming in and stating their opinion, as did I. So was I out of order?

Under the ordinary rules, discussion without a motion pending is not permitted. So under those rules, it would not have been in order to discuss a general "topic," but that rule would apply to the President as well. (For that matter, if the assembly is not using the small board rules, the presiding officer shouldn't be speaking in debate even when a motion is pending, in order to maintain the appearance of impartiality.)

This rule is often relaxed in small boards (not more than about a dozen members present), and in that instance, both you and the President could have spoken regarding the issue.

1 hour ago, Michelle said:

What about the president's display of behavior?

I think it is obvious that "the president got very angry, stood up, pointed across the table at me and shouted, "YOU ARE OUT OF ORDER" and ran out of the room slamming the door" is not acceptable behavior in a deliberative assembly (or just in general), especially for the presiding officer.

12 minutes ago, Guest Trevor said:

Has the Board formally adopted Robert's Rules? What does the Board's constitution state? In the absence of anything binding the Board procedurally, then the Chair would be able to manage the Board as she sees fit, but as she worked so hard to justify her actions, it would appear that she is not confident in her powers as Chair. Stick to your guns, and call the Chair to order. Even if she had the power to call you out of order, her behaviour indicates her unsuitability to hold the position.

This notion that "In the absence of anything binding the Board procedurally, then the Chair would be able to manage the Board as she sees fit" is incorrect. In the absence of any formally adopted rules, it is the board, not the chair, that determines the procedures to use.

"A deliberative assembly that has not adopted any rules is commonly understood to hold itself bound by the rules and customs of the general parliamentary law—or common parliamentary law (as discussed in the Introduction)—to the extent that there is agreement in the meeting body as to what these rules and practices are." RONR (12th ed.) 1:5

Edited March 26, 2021 at 07:37 PM by Josh Martin

[Joshua Katz]

This seems to me to provide yet another example of the wisdom of only having debate when there is a pending motion. It constrains debate to a (usually) binary question, which makes it less likely to become personal. In this instance, the barriers had come down - debate without a motion, the president participating in debate, and personal attacks. Then OP said something that may have been out of order, but no more so than what was already happening, but it happened to be something the president didn't like (as evidenced by the running out of the room and slamming the door). It's hard for the declaration that the statement was out of order (well, that's not what was said, but it's what should have been said) to be taken seriously as some sort of objective statement rather than an effort to control what is said, not how it is said. 

It also illustrates other points of parliamentary procedure, such as getting agendas right. An agenda consists of a series of general and special orders. If there was no business to be conducted on this matter, how did it wind up on the agenda? 

1 hour ago, Michelle said:

The president was very hostile towards me the entire meeting, including telling me it was their job to tell me I was out of order and then spent the the rest of the time on their phone emailing me various documents, including Robert's Rules of Order.

See, yes, this is the president's job. (Well, to tell a member when an action is out of order.) But that job becomes impossible to do when, in fact, the president is behaving this way. You can't scream like this, come back, and say "well, someone has to keep this meeting decorous."

[Michelle]

On 3/26/2021 at 2:02 PM, Guest Puzzling said:

Welcome to this forum.

For a starter did you get height up to date version of Roberts rules of order? 

The current edition is the 12th and I don't  think the version you were send was the right one (better buy 2 copies and give one to the chair , then at least  you are both speaking from the right  hymn sheet) 

For yourself also get the in brief version as introduction and as index (not as reference only the big book is that) 

Then what all happened was not according to Roberts rules on more points than I care to mention. 

About the president she was surely out of order, do investigate what the other boardmembers think of it.

I am certain what the President emailed me was not the most current version. It appears to be an older pdf. I have not compared it to the current. 

[Michelle]

On 3/26/2021 at 2:24 PM, Guest Trevor said:

Has the Board formally adopted Robert's Rules? What does the Board's constitution state? In the absence of anything binding the Board procedurally, then the Chair would be able to manage the Board as she sees fit, but as she worked so hard to justify her actions, it would appear that she is not confident in her powers as Chair. Stick to your guns, and call the Chair to order. Even if she had the power to call you out of order, her behaviour indicates her unsuitability to hold the position.

Yes. The board has formally adopted Robert’s Rules. It is stated in our bylaws. 

[Rob Elsman]

In the general membership meeting, you might want to make a motion to create a Committee on Rules, one of the primary tasks of which would be to promote good parliamentary procedure throughout the society by means of continuing education.  The nature of this motion depends on the language of the bylaws: if the bylaws specifically permit the general membership assembly to create standing committees in addition to those established in the bylaws, the motion can be in form of an ordinary main motion or resolution; otherwise, the motion will be in the nature of an amendment of the bylaws to insert another paragraph establishing the new committee.