11 347 Liner v. Jafco, Inc, 43
Decision Date | 06 January 1964 |
Docket Number | No. 43,43 |
Citation | 11 L.Ed.2d 347,375 U.S. 301,84 S.Ct. 391 |
Parties | . 11 L.Ed.2d 347 N. L. LINER et al., Petitioners, v. JAFCO, INC., et al |
Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
S. Del Fuston, Chattanooga, Tenn., for petitioners.
Jac Chambliss, Chattanooga, Tenn., for respondents.
The Chattanooga Building Trades Council, AFL, is composed of 17 building trades unions, including Hod-Carriers Building and Common Laborers' Union of America and its Local 846, two of the petitioners. Respondent Rea Construction Company, a large North Carolina building contractor, was engaged by respondent Jafco, Inc., as general contractor to erect a shopping center on a site in Cleveland, Tennessee. Rea operated an open shop, and workers on the project were paid lower wages than the union scale. The Council authorized the Hod-Carriers to place a single picket at the site in protest. The petitioner Liner, carrying a sign which read 'Rea Construction Co., not under contract with Chattanooga Building Trades Council, A.F. of L.,' began peaceful picketing on August 8, 1960. Construction workers on the job promptly ceased work. On the same day respondent Jafco, Inc., sought an ex parte injunction against the picketing from the Tennessee Chancery Court, which ordered the injunction to issue upon the execution and filing of an injunction bond. See 5 Tenn.Code Ann., 1955, § 23 1901. The next day, August 9, Jafco filed a bond providing that, if the injunction action failed, Jafco 'shall well and truly pay and satisfy the said (petitioners) all such costs, damages, interest, and other sums as may be awarded and recovered against the said Jafco, Inc. in any suit or suits which may be hereafter broyght (sic) for wrongfully suing out said Injunction * * *.' Thereupon the ex parte injunction issued,1 the picketing ceased in compliance with it, and work on the project was resumed.
The petitioners moved promptly in the Chancery Court to dissolve the injunction on the ground that the state court was without jurisdiction to adjudicate the controversy because the subject matter of the picketing was exclusively within the cognizance of the National Labor Relations Board. The motion was denied on September 29 by an order which recited, 'There is no bona fide labor dispute between the parties in this litigation and therefore the state court has jurisdiction of the matter and the same has not (been) preempted by the National Labor Relations Board.'2 Following a hearing, the injunction was made permanent by a final decree entered on June 16, 1961. Petitioners appealed to the Court of Appeals of Tennessee, Eastern Section, which affirmed on January 12, 1962. The opinion, not officially reported, is reported in 49 L.R.R.M. 2585. Pending decision on the appeal, construction at the site had been completed. Noting this fact, the court stated, 'In the first place the questions in this case have become moot.' However, the court went on to say, 'Further, we concur with the Chancellor's finding that a bona fide labor dispute did not exist.' 49 L.R.R.M., at 2587. The Supreme Court of Tennessee, by an unreported order, denied certiorari. We brought the case her, 371 U.S. 961, to consider the validity of the injunction in light of our decision in Local No. 438, Construction Laborers' Union, A.F.L.—C.I.O. v. Curry, 371 U.S. 542, 83 S.Ct. 531, 9 L.Ed.2d 514. We hold that the issuance of the injunction was beyond the power of the Tennessee courts and therefore reverse the judgment.
We must first consider respondents' challenge to our jurisdiction to review the Tennessee courts' rejection of the petitioners' federal preemption claim. The argument is that we are bound by the state appellate court's holding that this case was rendered moot by the completion of construction. We think, however, that in this case the question of mootness is itself a question of federal law upon which we must pronounce final judgment. Love v. Griffith, 266 U.S. 32, 45 S.Ct. 12, 69 L.Ed. 157. In that case a Texas trial court dismissed a suit to enjoin the enforcement of an allegedly unconstitutional rule which barred Negroes from voting in a single Houston Democratic primary election. An appeal from the dismissal was in turn dismissed by the Texas Court of Civil Appeals on the ground that, since the election was, at that time, long since passed the cause of action had ceased to exist. This Court, speaking through Mr. Justice Holmes, implicitly denied that the state court's finding of mootness precluded our independent determination of that question, saying,
.' 266 U.S., at 33—34, 45 S.Ct., at 12, 69 L.Ed. 157.
The Court did not, however, think that the action of the Texas Court of Civil Appeals prejudiced the appellants' constitutional rights. Since the election had been held, any order reversing the trial court and ordering the injunction to issue would have been futile; an injunction could not at that date redress the alleged constitutional injury. The Court said:
266 U.S., at 34, 45 S.Ct., at 12, 69 L.Ed. 157.
In contrast, the prejudice to the petitioners from the action of the Tennessee Court of Appeals in affirming the injunction which did issue in the instant case is clear. The petitioners plainly have 'a substantial stake in the judgment * * *,' Fiswick v. United States, 329 U.S. 211, 222, 67 S.Ct. 224, 230, 91 L.Ed. 196, which exists apart from and is unaffected by the completion of construction. Their interest derives from the undertaking of respondent Jafco, Inc., in the injunction bond to indemnify them in damages if the injunction was 'wrongfully' sued out. Whether the injunction was wrongfully sued out turns solely upon the answer to the federal question which the petitioners have pressed from the beginning. If the answer of the Tennessee Court of Appeals to that question may not be challenged here, the petitioners have no recourse against Jafco on the bond. Thus, unlike Love v. Griffith, supra, the federal issues remain of operative importance to the parties as they come to this Court; here it may be said that the Tennessee courts have in substance and effect denied a federal right, and the completion of construction cannot be deemed a hindrance to our review of the federal question. This is not a case where this Court's decision on the merits of that question 'cannot affect the rights of the litigants in the case before it.' St. Pierre v. United States, 319 U.S. 41, 42, 63 S.Ct. 910, 911, 87 L.Ed. 1199.3
Moreover, this is particularly a case in which 'we should be astute to avoid hindrances in the way of taking' up that question. Despite the completion of construction, our superintendence of a state court injunction against conduct alleged to be cognizable exclusively by the National Labor Relations Board is desirable 'if the danger of state interference with national policy is to be averted,' San Diego Building Trades Council, Millmen's Union, Local 2020 v. Garmon, 359 U.S. 236, 245, 79 S.Ct. 773, 780, 3 L.Ed.2d 775. This controversy involves the fundamental question of whether the Tennessee courts had any power whatever to adjudicate the dispute between the parties. Congress has invested the National Labor Relations Board with the exclusive power to adjudicate conduct arguably protected or prohibited by the National Labor Relations Act. San Diego Building Trades Council, Millmen's Union Local 2020 v. Garmon, supra. If the peaceful picketing com- plained of in this case is such conduct, Congress has ordained—to further uniform regulation and to avoid the inconsistencies which would result from the application of disparate state remedies—that only the federal agency shall deal with it. Weber v. Anheuser-Busch, Inc., 348 U.S. 468, 75 S.Ct. 480, 99 L.Ed. 546. The issuance of the state injunction in this case tended to frustrate this federal policy. This would be true even if the picketing were prohibited conduct. For although the National Labor Relations Board is not barred from granting appropriate remedies by the fact that the challenged conduct has ceased, National Labor Relations Board v. Mexia Textile Mills, Inc., 339 U.S. 563, 70 S.Ct. 826, 94 L.Ed. 1067, or that the construction has been...
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