Vulcan Detinning Co. v. St. Clair

• Decision Date: 16 December 1924
• Docket Number: No. 16085.,16085.
• Citation: 315 Ill. 40,145 N.E. 657
• Parties: VULCAN DETINNING CO. v. ST. CLAIR.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

315 Ill. 40

145 N.E. 657

VULCAN DETINNING CO.

v.ST. CLAIR.

No. 16085.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Dec. 16, 1924.

Petition by the Vulcan Detinning Company against J. N. St. Clair and others for a rule to show cause why defendants should not be adjudged guilty of contempt for violating an injunction. From the judgment of the Appellate Court, affirming an order of the circuit court adjudging him guilty of contempt, the named defendant appeals.

Reversed.

Farmer, J., dissenting.

Appeal from Appellate Court, Second District, on Appeal from Circuit Court, La Salle County; Edgar Eldredge, Judge.

James J:

Conway, of Ottawa, for appellant.

Boys, Osborn & Griggs and Arthur H. Shay, all of Streator, for appellee.

THOMPSON, J.

December 27, 1921, the Vulcan Detinning Company, appellee, and other employers of labor in the city of Streator, announced, through the public press, that upon the expiration of their respective contracts with the several labor unions interested therein, their plants and factories would be operated on the ‘open shop’ policy. For many years prior to 1921 the employees of appellee, and most of the manufacturers in Streator, were members of labor unions, and the contracts of employment were made with the employers by committees representing the organized employees. When appellee refused to treat with the representatives of Vulcan Federal Union No. 15,107 (the union to which its employees belonged), a strike was called. January 5, 1923, there was filed in the circuit court of La Salle county a bill of complaint, containing the usual allegations of threatening and intimidating employees, and praying for the issuance of an injunction restraining certain named persons, including J. N. St. Clair, appellant, from interfering with the business and destroying the property of appellee. At the conclusion of the hearing on the bill, a decree was entered in accordance with the prayer.

Appellant and others were restrained from in any manner whatsoever, by use of threats of personal injury, intimidation, or suggestion of danger, interfering with, hindering, obstructing, or stopping any person employed by the Vulcan Detinning Company in connection with its business or its factory in La Salle county, and from interfering with any person seeking employment with said company, and from inducing or attempting to induce, or compelling by threats, intimidation, violence, putting in fear, or by suggestion of danger, any of said company's employees to leave its employ, and from assembling or congregating about or in the proximity of the company's plant, and from applying opprobrious epithets to any of the employees of, or to any person seeking employment with, said corporation, and from calling any of said employees ‘scabs' or other offensive, scurrilous, or opprobrious names. February 24, 1923, there was filed in the circuit court of La Salle county a petition asking that the court direct appellant and others to appear and show cause why they should not be adjudged guilty of contempt. The petition charges, among other things, that appellant, who is the president of Vulcan Federal Union No. 15,107, caused to be published in the Streator Daily Free Press and the Daily Independent Times, two newspapers of general circulation in the city of Streator and vicinity, the following notice:

‘At their meeting held on February 18, 1923, the members of Vulcan Federal Union No. 15,107 voted unanimously to continue their strike against the Vulcan Detinning Company until an honorable agreement is reached. Those voted as traitors are ex-members W. H. Thomas and John Krapljon, now in the Vulcan Works, and Charles Heresheway, at the Western Glass Works. Former union men now at the Vulcan Works are George Sourby, Andrew Galick and Gus Samuelson. No red-blooded man will steal a real man's job. We are out to win, and will win. Vulcan Federal Union 15,107. By Order of the Organization.’

The petition charged appellant and others with other acts in violation of the order granting the injunction, but the chancellor properly held that these charges were not sustained. The chancellor found appellant guilty of contempt of court and sentenced him to pay a fine of $500. The Appellate Court for the Second District affirmed the order of the circuit court. A certificate of importance was granted, and this appeal followed.

[1][2][3][4][5] The decree of the circuit court granting the injunction stands without modification, and the sole question for determination on this hearing is whether appellant violated the injunction. If appellant was of the opinion that the court erred in ordering the injunction to issue, or that the injunction ordered was too broad in its terms, he should have appealed from the decree. Where the court ordering the injunction to issue has jurisdiction of the subject-matter and of the persons, an order made in the exercise of this jurisdiction, though erroneous, must be obeyed until it is modified or set aside by the court entering the order or reversed by an appellate court. Lyon & Healy v. Piano Workers' International Union, 289 Ill. 176, 124 N. E. 443;Christian Hospital v. People, 223 Ill. 244, 79 N. E. 72;Franklin Union No. 4 v. People, 220 Ill. 355, 77 N. E. 176,4 L. R. A. (N. S.) 1001, 110 Am. St. Rep. 248. When a court orders an injunction which is so broad in its terms that it invades fields of human activities, it has no right to invade, its order will be modified or set aside on review, and this orderly remedy by review is always open to any person who feels that his constitutionalrights have been invaded. Equity has no right to act for the sole purpose of preventing the commission of crime or the utterance of a libel, unless the act which amounts to a crime or a libel threatens an irreparable injury to property. The right to the preventive aid of equity is based upon the necessity of preventing irreparable damage to property and property rights, and of restraining actionable wrongs for which the remedy at law cannot afford proper and adequate redress. In order to entitle one to relief by injunction against unlawful interference with his business, positive and substantial injury must be shown, and, where it appears that the injury is not of an irreparable nature, and that the wrongs fuffered by the plaintiff may be fully and adequately redressed by an action at law for recovery of damages, relief by injunction should be denied. High on Injunctions (4th Ed.) § 1415f. Injunction is an extraordinary remedy, and, where human liberty is involved the writ should be used with great caution.

[6] In the case at bar appellant was enjoined from doing many things, but according to the finding of the chancellor the order was disobeyed in no respect, except in the publication of the notice hereinbefore quoted. In order to determine whether there was a violation of the order awarding the writ, it is proper to refer to the bill of complaint as a whole, the answers thereto, and the decree, for the purpose of determining the matters in issue between the parties to the controversy. The ojbect of the bill and the order was to prevent actual interference by appellant and his associates with the complainant in securing employees. The nonunion men employed by appellee were not parties to the bill; nor was it the purpose of the bill to protect them from violence, slander, or in any other respect, except in so far as their protection was necessary to the protection of the business and property of appellee. The employees of appellee were protected on the same theory and for the same purpose as its machinery and buildings. The order restraining appellant and his associates...