rejecting argument that “unincorporated association and/or its leaders stand in a fiduciary relationship with respect to its members under all circumstances.”
How later courts described this case
- rejecting argument that “unincorporated association and/or its leaders stand in a fiduciary relationship with respect to its members under all circumstances.”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
RUSHING, P. J.,
Concurring. — The Raiders are a diverse group of athletes. But despite such pluralism, the Raiders is a singular football team, and because of this, I must concur in the technical propriety of such phrases as “the Raiders asserts,” “the Raiders does not contend,” and “the Raiders was discriminated against,” which appear in the main opinion. However, although these phrases may be sound, their sound, to me, is personally foul and deserves dissent, if not a 15-yard penalty and loss of down. This is especially so when the phrases are read out loud.
I have long been a loyal fan of grammatical agreement. The natural harmony between subject and verb is usually euphonious. But my boosterism has not deafened me. Though the merits of agreement may be great, here it is grating. The phrases noted above are like blasts from an air horn or plastic trumpet, blaring technical correctness.
*655 Obviously, with a subject like “the Raiders,” the writer enters the challenging zone of subject-verb agreement. And in this appellate opinion, I do not think we should have simply agreed to “disagreement.” However, I believe we could have reached our goal of meaning and avoided fumbling dissonance with a judicial substitution: pulling “the Raiders” and going with a second-stringer like “the plaintiff.”