Your Food Stores v. RETAIL CLERKS'LOCAL NO. 1564

• Decision Date: 06 October 1954
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 2543.
• Citation: 124 F. Supp. 697
• Parties: YOUR FOOD STORES OF SANTA FE, Inc., a corporation, Plaintiff, v. RETAIL CLERKS' LOCAL NO. 1564 (AFL) and Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America, Local No. 168 (AFL), John T. Row, E. D. Bennie, Jose Maestas and Cecil Henninger, Their Associates, Agents, Servants and Employees, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of New Mexico

124 F. Supp. 697

YOUR FOOD STORES OF SANTA FE, Inc., a corporation, Plaintiff, v. RETAIL CLERKS' LOCAL NO. 1564 (AFL) and Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America, Local No. 168 (AFL), John T. Row, E. D. Bennie, Jose Maestas and Cecil Henninger, Their Associates, Agents, Servants and Employees, Defendants.

Civ. A. No. 2543.

United States District Court D. New Mexico.

October 6, 1954.

F. A. Catron, Santa Fe, N. M., for plaintiff, Your Food Stores of Santa Fe, Inc.

Edwin L. Felter, Santa Fe, N. M., Jacobs, Kamin & Ratner, by Mozart G. Ratner, Chicago, Ill., for defendant Unions.

ROGERS, District Judge.

This matter comes on this time for hearing and determination on the legal issues drawn between the petition for injunction, and order to show cause, instituted by Retail Clerks' Local No. 1564 (AFL), and Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America, Local No. 168 (AFL), hereinafter referred to as "Union", and the answer and return to the order to show cause, filed by Your Food Stores of Santa Fe, Inc., a corporation, hereinafter referred to as "Food Store". The petitioning Unions herein were defendants in an action filed against them by Food Stores in Cause Number 26839, in the District Court of Santa Fe County, New Mexico, seeking an injunction prohibiting the picketing by the Unions on Food Stores' premises, on the theory that said picketing constituted a trespass on the Food Stores' property. The Union petitioners in this case predicate claimed jurisdiction of this Court under the provisions of Section 2283 of the Judicial Code, Title 28 U.S.C.A. § 2283, authorizing Courts of the United States to grant injunctions and stay proceedings in a state court, where necessary, in aid of their jurisdiction, or to protect their judgments, and under Section 1651 of the Judicial Code, Title 28 U.S.C.A. § 1651, authorizing the United States District Courts to issue all rights necessary or appropriate in aid of their respective jurisdictions, and under Section 1337 of the Judicial Code, Title 28 U.S.C.A. § 1337, relating to commerce.

The above bases for jurisdiction of this Court would indicate previous litigation between the parties hereto, and such is the case. Originally, on March 8, 1954, Food Stores, as plaintiff, sued Unions, as defendants, in Cause Number 26426, District Court of Santa Fe County, New Mexico. The essential elements of Food Stores complaint may be summarized as follows: that it conducted a food merchandising establishment in Santa Fe, New Mexico, at all times material hereto, and that in the month of January, 1954, defendant Unions represented to the Food Store, that they represented the employees of the plaintiff in its meat, grocery and other departments, and demanded recognition by the employer as the bargaining unit of its employees, whereas in truth and in fact, the Union did not represent a majority of the employees of the above units of employer's store, and accordingly, plaintiff refused the requested recognition, and refused to enter into collective bargaining agreements with the two Unions; that it offered to have an election held to determine the question of the representation, which the defendant Unions refused, and that thereafter, the employees of plaintiff Food Stores formed an employee organization as the bargaining unit of the plaintiff. Further, that on or about March 5, 1954, the defendant Local Unions established a picket line on plaintiff's premises, in front of the entrance to the Food Store, which line continued up to the issuance of the restraining order hereinafter referred to. Plaintiff's complaint further alleged that the picketing had, for its purposes and objectives, the compelling of plaintiff to recognize the defendant Unions as the bargaining units of the Food Stores' employees for collective bargaining purposes, compelling plaintiff to negotiate for contractive unions as such bargaining units, and coercing the Food Stores' employees to join the Unions, in order to obtain employment. The Food Stores specifically plead that the acts and conduct of the defendant Unions constituted violations of certain provisions of the Labor Management Relations Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 141 et seq. The complaint concluded with allegations that the picketing interfered with the normal operations of plaintiff's store, with consequent loss of business, and a deprivation to the plaintiff of its property without due process of law. The Food Stores prayed that the defendants be enjoined from picketing or maintaining a picket line in or about plaintiff's premises, and from otherwise interfering with plaintiff in the operation of its business and business properties.

The defendant Unions seasonably filed a petition for removal of the State Court litigation, and on March 30, filed motion to vacate the temporary restraining order, and the motion to dismiss the cause on the ground that the acts charged against the defendant Unions, involve unfair labor practices under the Labor Management Relations Act, and that Congress, in creating the National Labor Relations Board, gave the latter exclusive right to determine whether any particular acts constitute unfair labor practices, as defined in that Act, and consequently, neither the State Courts of New Mexico, nor this Federal Court, had the power to grant injunctive relief in the premises.

During the course of the hearing on the defendants' two motions, plaintiff Food Stores admitted that during the previous year, it had purchased sixty per cent of its merchandise stock within New Mexico, and forty per cent, or approximately $400,000 of its merchandise stock from other states. Circuit Judge Bratton, sitting at the time as trial judge, concluded that the plaintiff Food Stores, was engaged in commerce, or was so intimately related thereto, as to be in practical and legal contemplation, a part of it, within the intent and meaning of the Labor Management Relations Act, and that the Labor Relations Board is clothed with jurisdiction to consider and determine in the first instance, any charge of unfair labor practices under such Act, occurring in connection with the business of the plaintiff. The Court further concluded that within the limits of the Act, the field is pre-empted, so as to exclude state action.

In a lucid, succinct opinion, D.C., 121 F.Supp. 339, Judge Bratton outlined the salient provisions of the national Labor Management Act, and ruled that this Court was without jurisdiction to grant the equitable relief demanded by plaintiff Food Stores, in respect to a labor controversy affecting commerce, and dissolved the restraining order and dismissed the action.

At about the time of the filing of the plaintiff's action in the State Court of Santa Fe County, defendants filed with the National Labor Relations Board, some complaints against the plaintiff, charging the latter with certain alleged unfair labor practices, including dismissal of certain employees for union activities, and illegal interference with, and attempted domination of, a company-union. The usual procedural delays attended administrative processing of defendant's charges, and in July of 1954, before a hearing on said charges was had, the Labor Relations Board announced certain additional standards on jurisdiction, the pertinent parts extracted from Petitioner's Exhibit "A" being as follows:

"(1) A single independent retail store or a chain of stores operating entirely within one state will not come under the Board's jurisdiction unless the store involved in the case has:

"(a) purchases amounting to at least $1,000,000 a year coming to it directly from outside of the state, or

"(b) purchases of $2,000,000 a year coming to it indirectly from outside the state, or

"(c) if the store ships $100,000 worth of merchandise into other states."

Undisputably, under these new standards, no unfair labor charges brought by either the defendant Unions or the plaintiff Food Stores, would be entertained and decided by the Board.

On July 20, 1954, the Board refused to issue complaints on the defendant's charges, for that reason.

Plaintiff Food Stores thereupon, on August 19, 1954, filed a further complaint against the Unions in the District Court of Santa Fe County, Cause Number 26839 on the docket of the State Court. This complaint was drafted on the theory that the defendant Unions had maintained picket lines on plaintiff's private property, including a parking lot on the leased premises, and on a private sidewalk required to be used by the plaintiff in front of the food market, interfering with the normal operation by the plaintiff of the store, and constituting a trespass on plaintiff's leased property. While alleging that no labor dispute existed between the parties, no allegations were contained in this last-named complaint that the actions of the defendants constituted unfair labor practices within the purview of the national Labor Management Act. To the contrary, plaintiff pleaded that the complained of trespass was not an unfair labor practice.

On the return date of the order to show cause heretofore issued on September 9, 1954, able and exhaustive arguments were made by both parties hereto, as a result of which, three questions are presented for decision: First, is plaintiff Food Stores estopped, under the doctrine of res adjudicata, from litigating the issues of its last complaint, by reason of the former judgment of this Court in the previous hearing? Second, is the matter of trespass by Unions, not enumerated as an unfair labor practice in either Section 158, Title 29, U.S.C.A., or in any other section of the Labor Management Act, subject to litigation in the State Court? Third, when the Labor Relations Board declines to exercise jurisdiction in an unfair labor practice case, by reason of the failure of the employer's operations to measure up to the minimum standards of the Board's announced standards on jurisdiction, does the State Court have jurisdiction to...