United States v. Hutcheson

• Decision Date: 29 March 1940
• Docket Number: No. 21231.,21231.
• Citation: 32 F. Supp. 600
• Parties: UNITED STATES v. HUTCHESON et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Missouri

32 F. Supp. 600

UNITED STATES v. HUTCHESON et al.

No. 21231.

District Court, E. D. Missouri, E. D.

March 29, 1940.

Thurman Arnold, Roscoe T. Steffen, William M. Marvel, James McI. Henderson, Paul V. Ford, and Wilber Stammler, all of Washington, D. C., for plaintiff.

Joseph O. Carson, II, and Joseph O. Carson, Sr., both of Indianapolis, Ind., Charles H. Tuttle and Thomas E. Kerwin, both of New York City, and Munro Roberts and Bryan Purteet, both of St. Louis, Mo., for defendants.

DAVIS, District Judge.

Four officers of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America are indicted under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, 15 U.S.C.A. § 1, and are alleged to have conspired to restrain interstate commerce. The acts set out in the indictment were the outcome of a jurisdictional dispute at Anheuser-Busch, Inc., between defendants' union, which is affiliated with the American Federation of Labor, and the International Association of Machinists, also affiliated with the A. F. L. Defendants contended their members should be exclusively entitled to perform the work of erecting, repairing and dismantling machinery that was being done by the Machinists.

The indictment alleges that defendants picketed or caused to be picketed the premises of Anheuser-Busch, Inc., and the premises of its tenant, Gaylord Container Corporation, the latter adjoining the premises of Anheuser-Busch, Inc.; that defendants refused to allow their members to be employed by Borsari Tank Corporation of America, which was about to construct a tank building for Anheuser-Busch, Inc.; that defendants refused to allow their members to be employed by L. O. Stocker Company, which had a contract to build an office building for Gaylord Container Company; and that defendants distributed circulars and letters and caused notices to be printed throughout the country in "The Carpenter", the official publication of defendants' union, denouncing Anheuser-Busch, Inc., as unfair to organized labor and calling upon all union members and friends of organized labor to refrain from purchasing and drinking beer brewed by that company.

Restraint of interstate commerce is alleged to have been attempted (1) through the publication of such circulars and notices throughout the country, intended to prevent the transportation of beer from Missouri to other states; (2) through what is alleged to be a "boycott" of the Borsari Company, which was prevented from shipping materials into Missouri from other states for the construction of the tank building; (3) through what is alleged to be a "boycott" of the Stocker Company, which was prevented from shipping materials into Missouri from other states for the construction of the office building for the Gaylord Container Corporation; and (4) through the picketing of the Anheuser-Busch plant and the premises of Gaylord Container Corporation, which was intended to cut off the manufacture and consequent shipping of beer and other products in interstate commerce by those companies.

Defendants have filed separate demurrers, which have been argued and briefed and are now for determination.

The definition of an unlawful conspiracy under the Sherman Act is given in Duplex Printing Press Co. v. Deering, 254 U.S. 443, 465, 41 S.Ct. 172, 176, 65 L.Ed. 349, 16 A.L.R. 196: "The accepted definition of a conspiracy is a combination of two or more persons by concerted action to accomplish a criminal or unlawful purpose, or to accomplish some purpose not in itself criminal or unlawful by criminal or unlawful means."

This concept of a conspiracy, so far as this case is concerned, has been qualified by certain statutes.

The Clayton Act, 15 U.S.C.A. § 17, provides that a labor organization, or the members thereof, shall not be held or construed to be an illegal combination or conspiracy in restraint of trade, under the antitrust laws.

The Norris-LaGuardia Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 105, prohibits any Court from issuing an injunction upon the ground that any person or persons participating in a labor dispute are engaged in an unlawful combination or conspiracy, because of the doing of certain acts.

In order to charge the defendants with the commission of a crime under the Sherman Act, the indictment must not only allege sufficient facts to show a conspiracy to cause a direct restraint upon interstate commerce, as distinguished from a remote or incidental restraint (Schechter Poultry Corporation v. United States, 295 U.S. 495, 55 S.Ct. 837, 79 L.Ed. 1570, 97 A.L.R. 947; Levering & Garrigues Company v. Morrin, 289 U.S. 103, 53 S.Ct. 549, 77 L.Ed. 1062), but must also show that defendants' activities were unlawful, outside the scope of the legitimate objects and means that may be sought and employed by labor unions under the sanction of the Clayton Act. Duplex Printing Press Co. v. Deering, 254 U. S. 443, 41 S.Ct. 172, 65 L.Ed. 349, 16 A.L. R. 196.

Allegations in the indictment concerning the activities of defendants in picketing the premises of Anheuser-Busch, Inc., and Gaylord Container Corporation, as well as the refusal to allow their members to be employed by Borsari Tank Corporation and L. O. Stocker Company, fail to allege a conspiracy to directly restrain interstate commerce; the restraint on commerce shown by such allegations is only incidental. Levering & Garrigues Company v. Morrin, supra; United Leather Workers v. Herkert & Meisel, 265 U.S. 457, 44 S.Ct. 623, 68 L.Ed. 1104, 33 A.L.R. 566; Industrial Association v. United States, 268 U.S. 64, 45 S.Ct. 403, 69 L.Ed. 849; United Mine Workers v. Coronado Coal Co., 259 U.S. 344, 42 S.Ct. 570, 66 L.Ed. 975, 27 A.L.R. 762; Leader v. Apex Hosiery Company, 3 Cir., 1939, 108 F.2d 71.

The real purpose of the defendants, as disclosed by the indictment, was not to restrain commerce, but to prevail in a local labor controversy. The Congress has not declared that a dispute of the nature alleged is unlawful. By the indictment it is sought to punish the defendants for what is conceived to be an unwarranted interference with a local industry, under the pretense that by the dispute interstate commerce was restrained. As the Supreme Court has said in Levering & Garrigues Company v. Morrin, supra, 289 U.S. loc. cit. 107, 53 S.Ct. loc. cit. 551, 77 L.Ed. 1062: "Accepting the allegations of the bill at their full value, it results that the sole aim of the conspiracy was to halt or suppress local building operations as a means of compelling the employment of union labor, not for the purpose of affecting the sale or transit of materials in interstate commerce. Use of the materials was purely a local matter, and the suppression thereof the result of the pursuit of a purely local aim. Restraint of interstate commerce was not an object of the conspiracy. Prevention of the local use was in no sense a means adopted to effect such a restraint. It is this exclusively local aim, and not the...