Lawson v. Kolbenson

Citations

• 61 Ill. 405

Syllabus

<p>1. Parties in equity—suit for church property. Where the minority of a church, organization seek to arrest a contemplated or correct an accomplished perversion of the trust under which the church property is held, the bill should be filed by the persons composing the minority in their individual names; or, if the parties be numerous and all stand in the same situation, having a common right or intererst, then two or three, or more, may sue in their own names for the benefit of all.</p> <p>2. Same—church as party. But when the acts of the trustees, confiitaed by a majority of the church, constitute the alleged perversion, then, inasmuch as such trustees and majority of the church represent the corporation, their acts must be regarded as the acts of the corporation, and the corporation is a necessary party, for it would not be bound unless made a party in its corporate character. Hence, if not complainant, it must be made defendant.</p> <p>3. Certainty—how far requisite. It is absolutely necessary that such a convenient degree of certainty should be adopted in the structure of bills In equity as will serve to give the defendant full information of the case which he is called upon to answer. The character in which the complainants sue is an essential element of the case, and they will not be allowed to so describe their character as to induce the defendant to suppose that they sue in autre droit, and then upon the hearing insist that they have sued as well in their own individual rights.</p> <p>4. Suit in autre droit—words describing. Where the complainants, after setting out their individual names, state the character in which they sue, thus: “as trustees of the Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran Church of Chicago, in their own right and in behalf of the persons hereinafter mentioned, whom, as trustees, they represent,” they describe the character in which they sue in the proper language to express that they sue in autren droit. It is as trustees, etc., and this is an