Loewe v. Lawlor

• Decision Date: 07 December 1906
• Docket Number: 538.
• Citation: 148 F. 924
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Connecticut
• Parties: LOEWE et al. v. LAWLOR et al.

148 F. 924

LOEWE et al. v. LAWLOR et al.

No. 538.

United States Circuit Court, D. Connecticut.

December 7, 1906

Davenport & Banks, for plaintiffs.

John K Beach, John H. Light, De Forest & Klein and Howard W. Taylor for defendants.

PLATT District Judge.

Some of the grounds of demurrer are general, attacking the entire complaint, and others are special, affecting only certain portions which are said to be irrelevant or evidential. It is with the former class that we are at this moment particularly concerned.

The complaint, stripped to the bone, sets forth, in substance the following situation: The defendants are members of a local union in Danbury, Conn., which is a subordinate branch of the United Hatters of North America, which embraces several states and many members, and is, in its turn subordinate to the American Federation of Labor, which embraces more states and more members. The defendants, by reason of such membership, were enabled to put into operation certain means to accomplish their purpose, and to such means they resorted with vigor and effect. They undertook thereby to compel the plaintiffs, against their will, to unionize their factory. Their associates, with their assistance, had prior thereto employed similar means toward divers factories in other states, and had succeeded. The defendants paraded such successes before the plaintiffs, and a threat to treat them in the same way was one of the means which they employed to coerce the plaintiffs into yielding to their demands. They then withdrew from plaintiffs' employment, and tried with considerable success to prevent others from working for them. With the help of their associates in the larger bodies to which they were affiliated, they declared a boycott upon hats made by plaintiffs which were found in the hands of plaintiffs' customers in other states, notably in California and Virginia. In such action they took advantage of the absence from plaintiffs' hats of the union label, which by the state law of Connecticut the United Hatters were authorized to affix to hats made under the supervision of their members. In these ways they caused the plaintiffs a great deal of damage, and (according to the complaint) limited and restrained plaintiffs' interstate trade in hats.

It must be obvious from the foregoing recital that the defendants by the means therein described sought to curtail, and, if possible, destroy, the plaintiffs' production of hats at home, and, with the assistance of their...