LABOR UNIONS-SUABILITY OF UNINCORPORATED LABOR UNION IN ITS COMMON NAME

Plaintiff brought suit in a district court of the United States against the defendant union in its common name, and officers of the union for an alleged libel. The union was not incorporated, no substantive right protected by federal law was involved, and the state wherein the suit was brought, Illinois, did not have a statute permitting actions at law against an unincorporated association in its own name. The district court dismissed the action against the union on the ground that it was not a legal entity; the plaintiff appealed. Held, under the common law of Illinois, an unincorporated association was not suable in its common name.

Dissent, the National Labor Relations Act made the union a legal entity suable in its own name, and the Illinois courts are bound by the federal law. Pullman Standard Car Manufacturing Company v. Local Union No. 2928 of United Steelworkers of America, CIO, (C.C.A. 2d, 1945) 152 F. (2d) 493.