INTERNATIONAL L. & W. UNION v. Hawaiian Pineapple Co.

• Decision Date: 11 January 1956
• Docket Number: No. 13673.,13673.
• Citation: 226 F.2d 875
• Parties: INTERNATIONAL LONGSHOREMEN'S & WAREHOUSEMEN'S UNION (CIO) and International Longshoremen's & Warehousemen's Union, Local 8, Appellants, v. HAWAIIAN PINEAPPLE COMPANY, Ltd., a corporation, Appellee. HAWAIIAN PINEAPPLE COMPANY, Ltd., a corporation, Appellant, v. Martin E. ADEN et al., Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

226 F.2d 875 (1955)

INTERNATIONAL LONGSHOREMEN'S & WAREHOUSEMEN'S UNION (CIO) and International Longshoremen's & Warehousemen's Union, Local 8, Appellants, v. HAWAIIAN PINEAPPLE COMPANY, Ltd., a corporation, Appellee.

HAWAIIAN PINEAPPLE COMPANY, Ltd., a corporation, Appellant, v. Martin E. ADEN et al., Appellees.

No. 13673.

United States Court of Appeals Ninth Circuit.

October 25, 1955.

Rehearing Denied January 11, 1956.

Gladstein, Andersen & Leonard, Norman Leonard, San Francisco, Cal., Nels Peterson & Frank Pozzi, John F. Conway, Portland, Or., for appellant.

Krause & Evans, Gunther F. Krause, Dennis J. Lindsay, Gerald H. Robinson, Portland, Or., for appellee.

Before HEALY, BONE and CHAMBERS, Circuit Judges.

CHAMBERS, Circuit Judge.

The issues here arise out of an industrial conflict. The principal situs of the events under suit was at the Columbia River port of the City of The Dalles, Oregon.

Below, the plaintiff was Hawaiian Pineapple Company, Ltd., (hereafter "Pineapple"), a corporation organized under the laws of the Territory of Hawaii. Principal defendants were the International Longshoremen's & Warehousemen's Union (hereafter "International"), Local 8 of the International Longshoremen's & Warehousemen's Union (the Portland, Oregon, local, hereafter "Local"), and various individual longshoremen, members of Local or officers or agents of International.

The events in suit happened mainly between September 24, 1949, and October 27, 1949.

Trial was by jury. A verdict was rendered in favor of Pineapple against International and Local for $201,274.27. The jury about-faced and rendered a verdict in favor of the individual defendants and against Pineapple.

Background information should be reported. In the summer of 1949 International's local unions in the Territory of Hawaii were engaged in strikes and picketing against others than Pineapple. Transportation to and from the islands had dwindled to a trickle. Pineapple had pineapple in Hawaii and it had California fresh fruits about ready for the cannery of a subsidiary at San Jose, California. At the California cannery each year canned Hawaiian pineapple would be uncanned, then would be combined with mainland fruits and recanned to produce canned fruit salad. It is to be noted that the process involved canning fruits other than pineapple only once.

Common carriers, tied up in the Islands, were unavailable to move Pineapple's pineapple to California. Therefore, Pineapple decided to move as its own self-carrier some of its cases of pineapple packed in No. 10 cans. Through its wholly owned subsidiary, Isleways, Ltd., it chartered an ocean-going barge, arranged for an ocean-going tug to tow the barge to the mouth of the Columbia River and a river tugboat to take the barge to The Dalles, the river port selected as the water destination.¹ The Dalles is a small port and not noted for coastal traffic. Prior to September, 1949, it seems to have escaped any serious attention from International or Local. The port obviously was selected by Pineapple because of the absence there of International and its locals.

Pineapple arranged for the services of a boom crane of the Goodat Company. This company was willing to sell its service to unload Pineapple's pineapple, but after a day or two of Pineapple's unloading troubles, Goodat had all of Pineapple's problems it wanted and sold the crane to Pineapple on a "do-it-your-self" basis.

Pineapple planned to transport the pineapple from The Dalles to San Jose by the trucks of various trucking companies and also by rail freight out over the Union Pacific, which serves The Dalles.

Below is a list of some of the troubles that developed for Pineapple in trying to unload the barge at The Dalles:

1. Before the arrival of the barge at The Dalles on September 24, 1949, Matt Meehan, a representative of International in the area, tried to dissuade the officials of the Port of The Dalles from letting Pineapple use the port and facilities.

2. On September 25, members of Local from Portland came to The Dalles in private cars and formed a picket line outside the dock of the Port of The Dalles. This line was maintained for some days.

3. Longshoremen met California teamsters in their trucks at a distance of several miles from The Dalles and tried to dissuade them from coming to The Dalles to pick up cargo. Four trucks, however, on September 28, 1949, came on through to the docks. Extra local police were on duty, but the longshoremen reacted violently to the arrival of the trucks. They broke through the police guard, ran to the dock. In the ensuing riot, the truck drivers were threatened and two were beaten. (The trucks went back to California empty.) The Goodat crane was attacked, but no serious damage was done to it. Unsuccessfully the mob tried to cut the barge loose. Over 400 cases of pineapple were tossed into the Columbia River.²

4. After the riot the picket line dispersed, at least for a time, but bevies of longshoremen from Portland continued for several days to walk the streets of the little town.

5. The tug languished at the dock until October 19, when Pineapple started to move the cargo via Union Pacific. Freight cars were moved on to the dock, a picket line immediately formed again. Another stalemate followed. Eventually, the cargo did move to San Jose beginning on October 26. At the time the strife ceased, an announcement was made that the Port of The Dalles had made some sort of concession to the longshoremen, but no contract was entered into between the port and Local, if such the port could. The concession was principally higher wages for the longshoremen who, we take it, remained non-union.

Earnestly, Pineapple appeals from the judgment which permitted the individuals to escape liability and International and Local cross-appeal, seeking relief here from the judgment against them. For reasons hereafter stated, the judgment rendered below will be affirmed as to all parties before this court.

Section 303 of the 1947 Labor-Management Relations Act is found as 29 U. S.C.A. § 187. So far as pertinent, it reads as follows:

"§ 187. Boycotts and other unlawful combinations; right to sue; jurisdiction; limitations; damages

"(a) It shall be unlawful, for the purposes of this section only, in an industry or activity affecting commerce, for any labor organization to engage in, or to induce or encourage the employees of any employer to engage in, a strike or a concerted refusal in the course of their employment to use, manufacture, process, transport, or otherwise handle or work on any goods, articles, materials, or commodities or to perform any services, where an object thereof is —

"(1) forcing or requiring any employer or self-employed person to join any labor or employer organization or any employer or other person to cease using, selling, handling, transporting, or otherwise dealing in the products of any other producer, processor, or manufacturer, or to cease doing business with any other person;

* * * * * *

"(4) forcing or requiring any employer to assign particular work to employees in a particular labor organization or in a particular trade, craft, or class rather than to employees in another labor organization or in another trade, craft, or class unless such employer is failing to conform to an order or certification of the National Labor Relations Board determining the bargaining representative for employees performing such work. Nothing contained in this subsection shall be construed to make unlawful a refusal by any person to enter upon the premises of any employer (other than his own employer), if the employees of such employer are engaged in a strike ratified or approved by a representative of such employees whom such employer is required to recognize under subchapter II of this chapter.

"(b) Whoever shall be injured in his business or property by reason or any violation of subsection (a) of this section may sue therefor in any district court of the United States subject to the limitations and provisions of section 185 of this title without respect to the amount in controversy, or in any other court having jurisdiction of the parties, and shall recover the damages by him sustained and the cost of the suit."

The charges against International and Local are laid primarily under the foregoing section, although the trial court thought as to these two a case was also stated against them under the common law.

It should be pointed out that in this case a pre-trial order was formulated.³ First, it listed the admitted facts, then set forth the contentions of the respective parties, and then listed the issues. Then it concluded with a statement that the order superseded the pleadings. Further, it provided that the order should not be amended except to prevent manifest injustice. Both parties approved the order and no effort was ever made to amend it. Such a type of pretrial order does tend to channelize contentions and does remove some of the flexibility lawyers ordinarily have under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, 28 U.S. C.A. It is not intended here to comment on the advisability of the practice, but rather to point up the feature which will appear important, particularly with reference to the appeals of the individual defendants.

Of the events surrounding the unloading of the barge, it seems fair to say Pineapple contended all were a part of an attempt to isolate the whole Territory of Hawaii. Aside from the "we didn't do it" defenses which defendants usually and naturally present, Local (or local members particularly) claimed to be concerned with wages and working conditions at the Port of The Dalles, a municipal entity. No suggestion is made that International or Local was bargaining agent for anyone employed by the Port of The Dalles. Some contention was made that Pineapple was the alter ego of companies in Hawaii against whom units of International were on strike. This latter contention does not seem...