LEGAL PHASES OF COOPERATIVE ASSOCIATIONS. 55 



return of iucome or any further showing with respect to its status under the 

 law, unless it changes the character of its organization or operations or the 

 purpose for which it was originally created. Collectors will keep a list of all 

 exempt corporations, to the end that they may occasionally inquire into their 

 status and ascertain whether or not they are observing the conditions upon 

 which their exemption is predicated. 



In compliance with the section just quoted all associations should 

 submit their cases to the collector of internal revenue for the dis- 

 trict in which they are located in order that their claim for an ex- 

 emption may be passed upon. 



UNINCORPORATED ASSOCIATIONS. 



Inasmuch as some cooperative associations are unincorporated, a 

 discussion of the legal status of such associations and the rights and 

 liabilities of their members is in order. Such an association may be 

 defined to be a body of persons acting together without a charter 

 but employing to a greater or less extent the forms and methods used 

 by incorporated bodies for the prosecution of the object for which 

 formed.®* 



DIFFER FROM PARTNERSHIPS OR CORPORATIONS. 



The liability of members of an unincorporated association to third 

 persons is frequently the same as that of partners, but this is not 

 always true. In the absence of a statutory or contractual provision 

 on the subject the death or withdrawal of a member does not dissolve 

 the association.^® A partnership, on the contrary, under such cir- 

 cumstances is dissolved by the death or withdrawal of a member.®*^ 

 Again, a corporation may sue or be sued in its own name, while at 

 common law, and in the absence of a statute, an unincorporated as- 

 sociation can not maintain an action in its own name but must sue in 

 the names of all the members composing it, however numerous they 

 may be." Likewise, such an association in the absence of a statute 

 can not be sued in its society name, but the individual members must 

 be sued.®^ A corporation may take title to property in its own 

 name, but an unincorporated association in the absence of a statute 

 is ordinarily incapable as an organization of taking or holding either 

 real or personal property in its name.®^ 



6*5 C. J. 1333. 



B5 Burke v. Roper, 79 Ala. 138 ; Lindermann, etc. Co. v. Stone Works, 170 111. A. 423 ; 

 Hossack V. Dev. Assoc, 244 111. 274, 91 N. B. 439. 



MScholefleld v. Eichelberger, 7 Pet. 586. 



6T St. Paul Typothetffi v. St. Paul Bookbinders' Union No. 37, 94 Minn. 351, 102 

 N. W. 725. 



^ Allis-Clialmers Co. v. Iron Moulders' Union, 150 Fed. 155. 



M Philadelphia Baptist Ass'n. v. Hart, 4 Wheat. 1, 4 L. ed. 499. 



