Murdock v. Walker

• Citation: 25 A. 492,152 Pa. 595
• Decision Date: 03 January 1893
• Docket Number: 44
• Parties: Murdock, Kerr & Co. v. Walker et al., Appellants
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

25 A. 492

152 Pa. 595

Murdock, Kerr & Co. v. Walker et al., Appellants

No. 44

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

January 3, 1893

Argued October 27, 1892

Appeal, No. 44, Oct. T., 1892, by defendants, Eugene Walker et al., from decree of C.P. No. 3, Allegheny Co., Feb. T 1892, No. 32, awarding preliminary injunction.

Bill in equity for injunction.

The bill averred that plaintiffs are job printers who employ a large number of journeyman printers and pressmen; that about Oct. 1, 1891, the printers and pressmen, then employed by plaintiffs, refused to work unless paid higher wages; that plaintiffs offered them work at the wages theretofore paid defendants are members of associations known as Typographical Union No. 7, and Pressmen's Union No. 13, and the workmen employed by plaintiffs since Oct. 1, 1891, are not members of said associations; that, ever since Oct. 1, 1891, defendants, with others unknown, have unlawfully combined and conspired to prevent plaintiffs from taking into and retaining in their employ printers, not members of said unions, who would work at the wages plaintiffs were willing to pay, and to drive away workmen employed by plaintiffs, with malicious intent to control and injure the business of plaintiffs and to compel them to pay the wages demanded by the workmen who left their employment, and to employ only members of said unions, in pursuance of which conspiracy defendants have attempted to accomplish their unlawful purposes by threats, menaces, intimidation and opprobrious epithets addressed to plaintiffs' workmen, by gathering in crowds about plaintiffs' place of business and places where plaintiffs' workmen board, following said workmen to and from their work, holding them up to the ridicule and contempt of bystanders, and divers other means of violence and intimidation; that such unlawful acts and conduct of defendants have deprived plaintiffs of the services of many men who were ready and willing to work, and impeded and damnified plaintiffs in their business; and that defendants intend to continue their lawful practices if not enjoined therefrom. The prayers were for injunction and general relief.

No answer was filed to the bill. Numerous affidavits were offered both by plaintiffs and defendants. The case was heard upon bill and affidavits, and after argument the court filed the following opinion:

"No questions seem to arise in this case which were not considered in the case of Brace Bros. v. Evans, decided by Judge SLAGLE [35 Pitts. L.J. 399 ^[*]]; that of Moorhead v Krause, recently decided by Judge STOWE, and that of McCandless & Kinser v. O'Brien, August term of this court. The right of workingmen to organize into associations cannot be questioned; and the right of the members of such associations, either as individuals or as an organization, to cease to work for any employer and to use all lawful and peaceful means to induce others to refuse to work for such employer are equally well founded. But the members of such associations have no right, by force, menaces or threats, to attempt to prevent the members of any other association, or men who belong to no association, from working upon such terms as they may be willing to do, nor, upon the other hand have nonunion workmen any right to use such means to prevent the members of any association or union from working upon such terms as they may agree upon with any employer. When any number of men so conduct themselves as to commit a continuing trespass or become a nuisance they may be enjoined. Under the affidavits submitted there can be no doubt that a number of the defendants, with others, have been in the habit of collecting in crowds about the establishment of the plaintiffs, having followed their workmen to and from their boarding houses, and purposely interfered with them in passing along the...