Bedford Cut Stone Co. v. JOURNEYMEN STONE CUTTERS'ASS'N OF NORTH AMERICA

• Citation: 9 F.2d 40
• Decision Date: 28 October 1925
• Docket Number: No. 3529.,3529.
• Parties: BEDFORD CUT STONE CO. et al. v. JOURNEYMEN STONE CUTTERS' ASS'N OF NORTH AMERICA et al.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (7th Circuit)

9 F.2d 40 (1925)

BEDFORD CUT STONE CO. et al. v. JOURNEYMEN STONE CUTTERS' ASS'N OF NORTH AMERICA et al.

No. 3529.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

October 28, 1925.

Walter G. Merritt, of New York City, and Charles Martindale, of Indianapolis, Ind., for appellants.

Frederick Van Nuys, of Indianapolis, Ind., for appellees.

Before ALSCHULER, EVANS, and PAGE, Circuit Judges.

ALSCHULER, Circuit Judge.

The appeal is from an order denying temporary injunction under substantially these facts: Appellants are various quarriers and fabricators of Indiana limestone, a building stone found in large quantities in the district about Bedford and Bloomington. Appellees are the Stone Cutters' Association of North America, a labor union, and its officers, who, for many years prior to 1921, had contracts with these employers whereunder only members of the union were employed for cutting the stone after it was quarried. In 1921 the employers and the union failed to reach an understanding, and thereafter appellants employed nonunion stone cutters in their works, forming them into an association, membership in which was required to obtain employment as stone cutters with these employers. Appellee union has local organizations in most of the states, largely in the principal cities of the country. Appellants' product is very large, and most of it is sent to nearly all parts of the United States for use in buildings. Some is shipped in rough or sawed blocks of convenient sizes to be cut where sent, but most of it is, prior to shipping, partly cut for use in the different buildings, and the cutting is completed at place of building. Much of it is fully shaped and cut at or near the quarries, ready to be set into the buildings, but even this frequently requires some cutting at the building for more exact fitting.

After long negotiations and failure to reach a new working agreement, the union officers ordered that none of its members should further cut stone which had already been partly cut by nonunion labor, with the result that on certain jobs in different states stone cutters, who were members of the union, declined to do further cutting upon such stone. Where, as in some cases, there were few or no local stone cutters, except such as belonged to the union, the completion of the buildings was more or less hindered by the order, the manifest object of which was to induce appellants to make a contract with the union for employment of only union stone cutters in the Indiana limestone district. It does not appear that the quarrying of stone,...