People ex rel. Page v. Board of Trade

Citations

• 45 Ill. 112

Syllabus

<p>1. Corporations—for what causes may disfranchise a member. Corporations have an inherent power of disfranchisement, for either one of three causes, viz.: 1. For offenses having no immediate relation to a member’s corporate duty, but of so infamous a nature, as to render him unfit for the society of honest men. 2. For an offense against the member’s duty as a corporator. 3. For offenses compounded of the two.</p> <p>2. Same — validity of a pm'tieular by-law—sustained. By the sixth section of the charter of the board of trade of the city of Chicago, power is granted to admit or expel such persons as they may see fit, in manner to be prescribed by the rules, regulations or by-laws thereof, and, under this grant, the board adopted a by-law, providing, that, if a member failed to comply with a business contract made with another member, upon satisfactory proof of such fact, he should be expelled: held, that such by-law was valid, being clearly within the power of the corporation to enact.</p> <p>3. Same — rules and regulations of, members bound by—if valid. When a person becomes a member of a corporation, he thereby voluntarily submits himself to the operation of all laws in force for its government, and by implication agrees to be bound by them, so far as they are within the corporate authority to enact.</p> <p>4 Same—by-laws of—must be in consonance with their nature and object. The nature and purposes for which a corporation was created, is the controlling consideration in determining the validity of its by-laws; and if they are foreign to its character, and a departure from its purposes, they are void; if otherwise, and they are in harmony with the general laws, they are valid.</p>