Connecticut § 33-1056 - Rules for membership.

§ 33-1056. Rules for membership.

Sec. 33-1056. Rules for membership. (a) Membership shall be governed by such rules of admission, retention, withdrawal and expulsion as the bylaws shall prescribe, provided all such bylaws shall be reasonable, germane to the purposes of the corporation, and equally enforced as to all members.

(b) Unless otherwise provided in the certificate of incorporation or the bylaws, another entity, foreign or domestic, may become a member of a corporation.

(c) Membership may be limited to persons who are members in good standing of another corporation, organization or association, if so provided in the certificate of incorporation. If membership is so limited, the certificate of incorporation may provide that failure on the part of any such member to keep in such good standing in such other corporation, organization or association shall be sufficient cause for expulsion.

(d) Unless otherwise provided in the certificate of incorporation or bylaws, a member may not voluntarily or involuntarily transfer his membership or any rights arising therefrom.

(e) Unless otherwise provided in the certificate of incorporation or bylaws, membership shall be terminated by death, voluntary withdrawal or expulsion, and thereafter all rights and privileges of the member in the corporation and its property shall cease.

(P.A. 96-256, S. 38, 209.)

History: P.A. 96-256 effective January 1, 1997.

Private nonstock corporation of lakefront cottage and home owners violated statutory provision that bylaws be “equally enforced as to all members” by terminating plaintiff cottage owners' membership due to winter occupancy of their cottages in violation of a bylaw and by not enforcing that bylaw against all other nonconforming uses of property. 46 CS 265. Bylaw that calls for expulsion for “conduct inconsistent with a gentleman and a man of honor” is not undefined and vague and therefore not unreasonable; fact that expulsion is only penalty available under bylaw does not render it unreasonable on its face and plaintiff's argument that bylaw is not germane to purposes of the society fails where plaintiff incorrectly equates a principle actuating a nonprofit organization with a purpose of the organization and moreover where members could reasonably have believed that one of the society's “immutable principles” is germane to the bylaw. Id., 411.