Gibbs v. United Mine Workers of America

• Decision Date: 06 April 1965
• Docket Number: No. 15624-25.,15624-25.
• Parties: Paul GIBBS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. UNITED MINE WORKERS OF AMERICA, Defendant-Appellant. Paul GIBBS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. UNITED MINE WORKERS OF AMERICA, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

343 F.2d 609 (1965)

Paul GIBBS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. UNITED MINE WORKERS OF AMERICA, Defendant-Appellant.

Paul GIBBS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. UNITED MINE WORKERS OF AMERICA, Defendant-Appellee.

Nos. 15624-25.

United States Court of Appeals Sixth Circuit.

April 6, 1965.

Clarence Walker, Chattanooga, Tenn., and William Ables, Jr., South Pittsburg, Tenn., Van Derveer, Brown & Siener, Chattanooga, Tenn., of counsel, for Paul Gibbs.

Willard P. Owens, Washington, D. C., and E. H. Rayson, Knoxville, Tenn., R. R. Kramer, Knoxville, Tenn., on the brief, for United Mine Workers.

Before CECIL, O'SULLIVAN and PHILLIPS, Circuit Judges.

O'SULLIVAN, Circuit Judge.

Plaintiff Paul Gibbs, appellee in No. 15,624 and cross-appellant in No. 15,625, recovered a $75,000 judgment entered on a jury verdict against defendant United Mine Workers, appellant in No. 15,624 and appellee in No. 15,625. No. 15,624 presents the United Mine Workers' appeal from such judgment. No. 15,625 is Gibbs' cross-appeal from the setting aside of one item of the jury's award of damages. This case is the latest in a series in which we have considered the collisions between the UMW and those who have sought to operate coal mines in Kentucky and Tennessee without signing UMW contracts.¹ The violence here involved was less spectacular than that described in those decisions. From the evidence, the jury could and did find that by violence and continued picketing the UMW prevented the Grundy Mining Company from opening a coal mine field in the Gray's Creek area of Marion County, Tennessee, and thereby deprived plaintiff Gibbs of his contracts to superintend the mine operation and to truck coal from the mines. Gibbs' complaint charged in substance that the objective of defendant's conduct was to induce and force employees of Grundy Mining Company to refrain from working in the mines, thereby causing Grundy to cease doing business with him as its superintendent and as an independent trucking contractor. His pleadings asserted that defendant's actions constituted a secondary boycott prohibited by Sections 8(b) (4) and 303 of the National Labor Relations and Taft-Hartley Acts, 29 U.S.C.A. §§ 158(b) (4) and 187, and violated the common law of Tennessee as an unlawful interference with his contracts of employment and haulage.

Motions to dismiss and for direction of a verdict were denied. Interrogatories submitted to the jury called for separate answers on each issue in the case, and by its answers the jury found defendant guilty of the charged violations of the Federal Statute and of the common law of Tennessee. The jury found that 1) UMW had struck Grundy, had induced or encouraged its employees to strike, and had threatened, coerced or restrained Grundy; 2) that an object of such activity was to force Grundy to cease doing business with Gibbs as to his trucking and employment contracts; 3) that such activity was not aimed at Grundy in a primary capacity; 4) that Grundy was engaged in commerce or an industry affecting commerce; 5, 6, 7) that UMW was party to a conspiracy to wrongfully interfere with Gibbs' contracts in violation of Tennessee law; 8, 9) that Gibbs suffered $60,000 damages with respect to his employment contract, and $14,500 damages as to the trucking contract; 10, 11) that Gibbs was entitled to recover $100,000 punitive damages. Upon the basis of the foregoing findings, the District Judge made the following rulings in disposing of defendant's motions for judgment n. o. v. or for a new trial:

1) That the loss of Gibbs\' hauling contract was caused by a secondary boycott as well as by a common law conspiracy, but that the jury\'s award of $14,500 damages for such loss must be set aside since as a matter of law his proofs as to loss of profits had no probative value. This latter ruling is the subject of Gibbs\' cross-appeal in No. 15,625.

2) That interference with Gibbs\' contract of employment as mine superintendent was not a secondary boycott because in his status as an employee he could not be "any other person" vis-a-vis the Grundy Mining Company as that term is used in 29 U.S.C.A. § 158(b) (4) (B). That this follows from Seeley v. Brotherhood of Painters, etc., 308 F.2d 52, 60 (CA 5, 1962) where the Court dealing with a discharged employee\'s reliance on that Section, said

"It is the appellant-plaintiff\'s contention that the labor organization caused his injury by `forcing or requiring any person * * * to cease doing business with any other person * * *,\' that is, by requiring his employers, Wiscombe Southern and Earl Paint Corporation, to discharge the plaintiff. We are cited to no case where the language `to cease doing business with any other person\' as used in this section has the same meaning as to discharge an employee. Literally, it could have that meaning but that would be foreign to the whole purpose of the section which has to do with a secondary boycott ban. No secondary boycott was involved in this case."

3) That even though Gibbs could not rely on the Federal secondary boycott statute to recover for loss of his employment contract, defendant\'s conduct did permit recovery for such loss under the common law of Tennessee; that because Federal jurisdiction was properly invoked as to Gibbs\' claim for loss of his hauling contract it was proper to allow recovery under state law for the loss of his employment contract under the doctrine of Hurn v. Oursler, 289 U.S. 238, 53 S.Ct. 586, 77 L.Ed. 1148 (1933), and under this Court\'s decision in UMW v. Meadow Creek Coal Co., 263 F.2d 52 (CA 6, 1959), cert. denied, 359 U.S. 1013, 79 S.Ct. 1149, 3 L.Ed.2d 1038 (1959) and cases following Meadow Creek.

4) That improper argument by plaintiff\'s counsel did not vitiate the entire verdict, and should be considered only in appraising its claimed excessiveness.

5) That the $60,000 award for loss of Gibbs\' employment contract was excessive by $30,000, the $100,000 award of punitive damages was excessive by $55,000, and that a new trial must be granted unless plaintiff remit such excessive parts of the awards.

The required remittiturs were accepted by plaintiff, and final judgment was entered in total amount of $75,000.

Turning to the factual background of these rulings, plaintiff Paul Gibbs had been engaged in the coal mining industry for many years, presumably as a miner, as a trucker and trucking contractor, and as a mine operator. In 1959 and 1960, two companies, Tennessee Consolidated Coal Company, referred to herein as Tennessee Consolidated, and Tennessee Products and Chemical Corporation, referred to herein as Tennessee Products, owned and were producing coal in the area in question. Gibbs had been working as a trucker and, as lessee of Tennessee Products, as a mine operator under contract with UMW. Tennessee Consolidated had had contracts with UMW, but after unsuccessful negotiations it terminated such contracts in early 1960 and its operations in what was known as the Coal Valley Mine were shut down by a strike. Prior to August, 1960, Tennessee Consolidated organized a subsidiary called Grundy Mining Company for the purpose of commencing operations in its Gray's Creek holdings. It sought to carry on this operation without a UMW contract, and to that end a number of employees were recruited without notice to former Coal Valley Mine workers, members of UMW. Notice of the new operation, however, was communicated in some manner to one John D. Cain, Jr., a representative of the rival Southern Labor Union. Grundy's president contacted plaintiff Gibbs on August 12, 1960 and they made a verbal contract whereby Gibbs was to be superintendent of the work at Gray's Creek at a starting salary of $600 per month and, as an independent operator, was to furnish trucks and haul the coal produced at Gray's Creek for a price of seventy-eight cents per ton.

The Gray's Creek area was within UMW District 19, whose representative there was one George Gilbert. More particularly, Gray's Creek was within the jurisdiction of defendant's Local No. 5881, whose members had worked at the Tennessee Consolidated Coal Valley Mine. The plan to open up Gray's Creek became known and on Sunday, August 14, pursuant to a posted notice and the call of their president, members of Local No. 5881 met to consider the prospective opening. Monday, August 15, several members of Local No. 5881 went to the entrance of the Gray's Creek work site shortly after Paul Gibbs' arrival there in the early morning. Paul Gibbs, John Cain, representative of the Southern Labor Union, and a number of miners hired to work at the Grundy mine were then and there persuaded not to attempt to commence work. There was evidence that such persuasion was aided by the display of firearms. The next day, August 16, Gibbs, Cain and a substantial number of miners who had been employed by Grundy again arrived at the mine site. Again, they were persuaded and induced not to go to work. This time, however, the persuasion was more impressive. A crowd estimated at 75 to 125, including members of Local No. 5881 was on hand, a large number carrying various types of firearms. It will be sufficient to say that by display and pointing of guns, by beating Cain and burning his brief case, and by "escorting" Gibbs and Cain out of the area by a motorcade, the Mine Workers effectively induced Grundy's employees not to go to work and prevented Grundy Mining Company from opening the Gray's Creek mine. This threshold success was thereafter made secure by around-the-clock picketing of the entrance to the mine area. Picketing continued for eight or nine months during which Grundy Mining Company made no further effort to open the mine.

The proofs were sketchy as to defendant's responsibility for the described conduct. It was stipulated that defendant would be liable for action taken by District 19 representative Gilbert in the course of his employment. Gilbert and members of the Local testified that Gilbert neither knew of...