Cosentino v. INTERNATIONAL LONGSHOREMEN'S ASS'N, ETC., Civ. No. 8946.

• Decision Date: 02 October 1954
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 8946.
• Citation: 126 F. Supp. 420
• Parties: Salvatore COSENTINO, Regional Director for the Twenty-Fourth Region, National Labor Relations Board, for and on behalf of the National Labor Relations Board, Petitioner, v. INTERNATIONAL LONGSHOREMEN'S ASSOCIATION, DISTRICT COUNCIL OF PORTS OF PUERTO RICO; Local 1585, International Longshoremen's Association, and Eusebio G. Moreno, José N. Cabán, Juan Muller, and Angel Bialis, Respondents.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Puerto Rico

126 F. Supp. 420

Salvatore COSENTINO, Regional Director for the Twenty-Fourth Region, National Labor Relations Board, for and on behalf of the National Labor Relations Board, Petitioner, v. INTERNATIONAL LONGSHOREMEN'S ASSOCIATION, DISTRICT COUNCIL OF PORTS OF PUERTO RICO; Local 1585, International Longshoremen's Association, and Eusebio G. Moreno, José N. Cabán, Juan Muller, and Angel Bialis, Respondents.

Civ. No. 8946.

United States District Court D. Puerto Rico, San Juan Division.

October 2, 1954.

Alvin Lieberman, Washington, D. C., George L. Weasler, Santurce, Puerto Rico, Vincent Rotolo, New York City, for petitioner.

Thomas Sheehan, New York City, Rafael V. Pérez Marchand, Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico, Santos P. Amadeo, Santurce, Puerto Rico, for respondents.

A. C. SNYDER, Acting District Judge.

If there is nothing further, gentlemen, I see no reason for delaying my indication to you of my decision in this case. First, I would like to thank the attorneys for their able and courteous help to the Court. Mr. Pérez Marchand has made a very interesting and able argument on a very troublesome legal question with which we, in Puerto Rico, will be struggling for some time. I naturally expected that of him, knowing him in the past. It has been a pleasant introduction to you two gentlemen from New York, to have you in this case. You have been very helpful and courteous, and I like the fact that in a field as disputations as this one, that we could try the case with light, rather than heat. I congratulate you and I thank you.

Now, as to your motions. The motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction is one on which perhaps I could rule pro forma, as indicated by Mr. Lieberman, on the basis that I am bound by the fact that this case has a certification in it, and also by the fact that the statute recites that I need only find probable cause, rather than make a final determination on both facts and law. I put those two questions to one side, because I am satisfied that the Taft-Hartley Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 141 et seq., applies to the facts of this case. Let me add that my present view is that you might well have a different question if this case had arisen in an industry which was not engaged in Interstate Commerce. Likewise, you might have a different question if the statute before us had been enacted or amended so far as its applicability clause is concerned, since the enactment and acceptance by the people of Puerto Rico of Act No. 600, 48 U.S.C. A. § 731b et seq.

In the first instance, as to local application it may well be, although I come to no positive conclusion on it in this case, that in Puerto Rico Federal statutes which would not be valid if applied locally in a State are no longer valid if so applied in Puerto Rico, in view of the terms of Act No. 600 and Act No. 447 of Congress accepting the Constitution, Joint Resolution July 3, 1952, 48 U.S.C.A. § 731d note. That is a question which remains to be solved in the future in an appropriate case. It may well come up in a National Labor Relations Board case, although with the new theory of the Board as to disclaimer of jurisdiction it may not come up with regard to Puerto Rico.

As to the second point, the present relation between Puerto Rico and the United States may well make it necessary for Congress, if it proposes to make a Federal law equally applicable in Puerto Rico in the same way as it is applicable to the States of the Union, to make it applicable to Puerto Rico by using a term other than "Territory". I am satisfied that Puerto Rico is no longer a Territory in the sense that the term is used in the Constitution and the cases. Therefore, if the Congress of the United States proposes in the future to make a statute applicable to Puerto Rico, I believe that, generally speaking, it will have to make it so other than by the use of the term "Territory".

However, both those statements are very tentative. I don't propose to be bound by them in any other place or in this place in any other case. They are dicta on dicta, and spoken orally, although after many months of deliberation and study. In this case they are pure dicta, pure conversational conclusions, precisely because the case has arisen under a statute which was enacted prior to Act No. 600, and applies in this case as though to a State of the Union. I am satisfied that the whole body of Federal laws that apply in the same constitutional way as they do to a State, continue to apply to Puerto Rico wherever they have been previously applicable. Congress could not have meant any other conclusion, nor could Puerto Rico have consented to any other arrangement. Chaos would have immediately resulted if the contrary conclusion were reached. There are a host of statutes that applied to Puerto Rico without specifically mentioning its name, on the books of the United States Statutes. Personally, as far as I can recall, the probation statute applies to Puerto Rico without specifically mentioning its name. Surely this...