Evans v. Brown

Pattison, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The appellees in this case were, by the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of Maryland at its session, held at the City of Hagerstown, State of Maryland, on the lYth and 18th of August, 1914, suspended from membership in Universal Lodge, Number’ Fourteen, a subordinate lodge of Annapolis, Maryland, and deprived of their general Masonic rights for a period of six months, upon the charge of disclosing the secrets of Masonry in the testimony given by them in the case of Henry Valentine v. Universal Lodge Number Fourteen Joseph P. Evans, Grand Master, and the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of Maryland, heard in the Equity Court for Anne Arundel County, Maryland, from which an appeal was taken and a decision rendered in this Court at its April Term, 1919, in the case of Universal Lodge Number Fourteen, Joseph F. Evans, Grand Master and the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of Maryland v. Henry Valentine. The appellees in their amended bill, filed in the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County, sitting as a Court of Equity, asked that the action of the Grand Lodge in suspending them be declared null and void, and that the defendant corporations and Joseph P. Evans, Grand Master, be enjoined and restrained from interfering with them in the exercise of their rights as members of the subordinate lodge. The bill alleges, among other tilings, that certain of the plaintiffs “were not present at the aforesaid session of the * * * Grand Lodge, * * * had no notice whatever that any charges would be preferred against them, and had no opportunity to appear at said session and malee defense of said charges;” while it alleges others were present at said session of the Grand Lodge, “but had no knowledge nor notice of any description whatever, ⁵²¹ prior to arriving there, that any charges were to be preferred against them; that the session of the * * * Grand Lodge as aforesaid was convened at 12 o’clock on the 17th day of August, * * * and among the first things ordered by the said Joseph P. Evans, Grand Master, * * * was the appointment of a commission and the preferring' of charges against them, with directions to the said commission to report their findings to the * * * Grand Lodge at 2:30 o’clock of the same afternoon; that the commission assembled at 1 o’clock P. M. on the 17th day of