Daniels V. Sanitarium Association Inc‪.‬

Plaintiffs confront us with the anachronistic situation that an unincorporated labor union cannot, under the decisions at common law, file suit in its own name. These older cases, of course, reflect an age when a labor union occupied a doubtful legal status. For the reasons we shall later specify in more detail we believe that the role of the union in the present economy, and the statutory sanction of the union under certain circumstances as a bargaining representative of employees, requires a procedural accommodation to the union's ability to litigate. Moreover, since we have recognized that the union may be substantively liable in tort as an entity, we do not see why it should not be able to sue as an entity. Upon a parity of reasoning we have likewise concluded that the union may be defamed as an entity.