Rivard v. Chicago Fire Fighters Union, Local No. 2

This case poses the issue of whether a statute allowing voluntary, unincorporated associations to sue and to be sued in their own names should be retroactively applied to a suit against such an association where the cause of action arose before the statute’s effective date. We answer this question in the negative.

The plaintiffs in the two actions consolidated below "sought damages from the defendant, a fire fighters union, for death and injuries suffered in fires which occurred during a strike called by the union in 1980. The plaintiffs are: April Rivard; Robert Oliver, administrator of the…