Lassiter v. Swift & Co.

Decision Date18 November 1948
Docket Number16352.
Citation50 S.E.2d 359,204 Ga. 561
CourtGeorgia Supreme Court
PartiesLASSITER et al. v. SWIFT & CO.

Syllabus by the Court.

Where as here, the judgment excepted to is one finding the employees guilty of contempt of court for violation of an injunction order issued on the petition of the employer, the rights of the employer and employees growing out of their relationship and the validity of the injunction order and not under review, but the sole question for this court to decide is whether or not the court's order is shown to have been violated by the employees. The evidence authorized the court to find that each of the plaintiffs in error, with the exception of O. A. Duncan, who were not parties to the main suit, acted in violation of the court's order with full knowledge of the existence and content of that order. The evidence authorized as to Duncan no more than a conjecture or inference, and was insufficient in law to prove that he had violated the court's order.

Swift & Company brought suit in the Superior Court of Colquitt County against J. T. Lassiter, W. W. Littles, Warl McGlamory Harvey Mathis, James T. Norman, John T. Beverly, Jasper McFarland, and Local Union No. 269 of the United Packing House Workers of America (C. I. O.), whose officers are H. S Carter, President, J. T. Lassiter, Vice-President, H. L Strange, Secretary, and Lloyd Allegood, Recording Secretary, as alleged in the petition. The petition alleged that the defendants were employees of the petitioner, were on strike, and had interfered with the operation of the company by certain alleged acts, such as blocking the entrance to the company's plant with automobiles and intimidating employees engaged in delivering the products of the company; and it was prayed that the defendants be enjoined. On April 12, 1948, an order was entered, restraining the defendants from preventing or attempting to prevent the petitioner by threats, violence, intimidation, or other unlawful business activity and the peaceful use and means from engaging in or continuing its proper and lawful enjoyment of its property used in the conduct of its business, from disposing of its goods and products, and from preventing or attempting to prevent by threats, violence, intimidation, or other unlawful means any person or persons from engaging in or remaining in the employment of the petitioner or performing the business, labor, or duties in connection with their employment with the petitioner.

Thereafter, on April 24, 1948, pursuant to a stipulation and agreement of counsel for all the parties to the said cause, waiving an interlocutory hearing and consenting that the restraining order be continued, the court entered an interlocutory judgment continuing the restraining order of April 12, 1948, just as if an interlocutory hearing had been held in the matter.

On April 29, 1948, the petitioner made an application to the court for an attachment for contempt against J. T. Lassiter, W. W. Littles, Earl McGlamory, John T. Beverly, Jasper McFarland, H. S. Carter, H. L. Strange, Lloyd Allegood, Cecil Dickens, Billy Miller, C. F. Hart, and O. A. Duncan, alleging in the application that the parties named were guilty of violating the interlocutory injunction, and alleging various incidents which it was contended constituted such violation. Cecil Dickens, Billy Miller, C. F. Hart, and O. A. Duncan, named in the application for citation for contempt, were not named in the petition for injunction or in the interlocutory injunction order.

On April 30, 1948, the court amended the interlocutory injunction order by adding thereto 'Lawful and peaceable picketing is permitted.'

On May 4, 1948, the petitioner brought a second application for contempt against J. T. Lassiter, W. W. Littles, Jasper McFarland, Earl McGlamory, Jack Martin, J. C. Courtoy, and I. C. Clayton because of alleged violation of the interlocutory injunction. Jack Martin and J. C. Courtoy were not parties to the injunction suit or to the interlocutory injunction. Cecil Dickens, Billy Miller, and O. A. Duncan filed a motion to dismiss the application for contempt upon the ground that they were not parties to the case and were not bound by the effort of the petitioner to make the Local Union a party, and could not be ruled for contempt on the basis of the case to which they were not parties.

The respondents in the first application for contempt which was filed April 29, 1948, filed special demurrers, grounds 2 and 6 of which were sustained and all the other grounds overruled. They also filed an answer denying the allegations of the petition and making affirmative defenses.

The respondents, Jack Martin, J. C. Courtoy, and I. C. Clayton, in the application for citation for contempt, filed on May 4, 1948, a written motion to dismiss and dissolve the application upon the ground that they were not parties to the main case and were not bound by the petitioner's attempt to make the Local Union a party. They also filed an answer making a general denial and setting forth affirmative defenses.

After hearing evidence submitted by both sides, the court overruled the motion to dismiss and certain grounds of the special demurrer, finding the respondents, J. T. Lassiter, W. W. Littles, Jasper McFarland, Earl McGlamory, Cecil Dickens, Billy Miller, O. A. Duncan, Jack Martin, J. C. Courtoy, I. C. Clayton, and C. F. Hart, to be guilty of having failed and refused to comply with the orders of the court entered on April 12, 1948, and April 24, 1948, and to be in contempt of court. The respondents, J. T. Lassiter, W. W. Littles, Jasper McFarland, and Earl McGlamory, were sentenced to serve a period of 20 days in the common jail of the county, and the other respondents were sentenced to serve a period of 10 days in jail. The respondents excepted, assigning error on the final judgment and on the rulings overruling the motions to dismiss and the judgment overruling grounds 1, 3, 4, 5, and 7 of the respondents' special demurrers; but in this court have expressly waived the exception to this ruling except as it relates to the overruling of ground 7 to paragraph 5 of the application for attachment filed on April 29, 1948, and especially to that part of the paragraph which alleges that 'about 2 o'clock on the morning of April 18th the home of the said I. C. Carter, an employee of Swift & Company, was blasted by dynamite, his daughter and other members of his family narrowly escaping injury;' the grounds of the demurrer being that the said allegation was irrelevant, impertinent, immaterial, and prejudicial, in that the allegation and the petition wholly failed to show that the respondents or any of them were in any manner responsible or had any connection with the alleged dynamiting or to connect the said alleged dynamiting in any manner with the respondents or with any acts or activities alleged to have been performed by them after the judge had reserved his ruling on the demurrer until after the conclusion of the evidence. Objections were made to the testimony of a witness for the petitioner, testifying to the truth of the allegation demurred to upon the same grounds, and the action of the court in overruling the objections to that testimony is excepted to.

The evidence introduced is voluminous and we do not deem it necessary to set it out in full here. It shows that on one occasion an employee telephoned the superintendent of the petitioner early in the morning, that the sheriff and his deputies went out there, and the superintendent found the employee standing in the road picked him up and carried him to the plant, the sheriff following them. The defendant Duncan was seen talking to this employee and the employee quit work and has not been back. The defendants put a sign on a telephone pole located upon the petitioner's property, and when the superintendent of the petitioner removed the sign, the defendant Lassiter invited him to come across the street and they would settle it once and for all. Billy Miller placed an automobile in the private driveway of the petitioner, thereby interfering with the ingress and egress to the petitioner's plant. On another occasion an employee, Allen, found when he was ready to leave the shop that his truck would not start, and after going uptown and returning with a mechanic he and the mechanic were ordered by a number of respondents, whom he identified at the trial, not to enter upon the petitioner's premises, and they were required to return and obtain the protection of the sheriff to enable them to enter the company's premises for the purpose of repairing the employee's car. Another employee testified that when he was walking into the plant with another employee, four or five of the pickets, including J. T. Lassiter and I. C. Clayton, told them that they could not go into...

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7 cases
  • McWhorter v. Com.
    • United States
    • Virginia Supreme Court
    • 15 janvier 1951
    ... ... 870] United States v. Taliaferro (D.C. Va.), 290 F. 214, 218 (affirmed C.C.A.4, 290 F. 906); Lassiter v. Swift & Co., 204 Ga. 561, 50 S.E. (2d) 359, 363; Evening Times Printing, etc., Co. v. American Newspaper Guild, 124 N.J. Eq. 71, 199 A. 598, ... ...
  • Bailey v. Bailey
    • United States
    • Georgia Supreme Court
    • 18 novembre 1948
  • General Teamsters Local Union No. 528 v. Allied Foods, Inc.
    • United States
    • Georgia Supreme Court
    • 1 décembre 1971
    ... ... 387, 52 S.E. 446; Patten v. Miller, 190 Ga. 152(2), 8 S.E.2d 786; DeRose v. Holcomb, 226 Ga. 289, 174 S.E.2d 410 ...         In Lassiter v. Swift and Company, 204 Ga. 561, 50 S.E.2d 359, this court held: 'Where, as here, the judgment excepted to is one finding the employees guilty of ... ...
  • Iter v. Swift & Co
    • United States
    • Georgia Supreme Court
    • 18 novembre 1948
    ... ... The evidence authorized as to Duncan no more than a conjecture or inference, and was insufficient in law to prove that he had violated the court's order.Error from Superior Court, Colquitt County; Geo. R. Lilly, Judge.Suit for injunction by Swift & Company against J. T. Lassiter and others. To review a contempt judgment for violation of interlocutory injunction, the defendants bring error.Partly reversed and partly affirmed.Swift & Company brought suit in the Superior Court of Colquitt County against J. T. Lassiter, W. W. Littles, Warl Mc-Glamory, Harvey Mathis, James ... ...
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6 books & journal articles
  • 9 Contempt
    • United States
    • State Bar of Georgia Georgia Benchbook 2018 edition
    • Invalid date
    ...contempt from a disobedience of a court order, one must find: A. Accused had actual knowledge of the court order [Lassiter v. Swift & Co.,204 Ga. 561, 50 SE2d 359 (1948)]; B. Order was definite enough to put the accused on notice of what conduct was prohibited [Schiselman v. Trust Co. Bank,......
  • 9 Contempt
    • United States
    • State Bar of Georgia Georgia Benchbook 2017 edition
    • Invalid date
    ...contempt from a disobedience of a court order, one must find: A. Accused had actual knowledge of the court order [Lassiter v. Swift & Co.,204 Ga. 561, 50 SE2d 359 (1948)]; B. Order was definite enough to put the accused on notice of what conduct was prohibited [Schiselman v. Trust Co. Bank,......
  • 9 Contempt
    • United States
    • State Bar of Georgia Georgia Benchbook 2016 edition
    • Invalid date
    ...contempt from a disobedience of a court order, one must find: A. Accused had actual knowledge of the court order [Lassiter v. Swift & Co.,204 Ga. 561, 50 SE2d 359 (1948)]; B. Order was definite enough to put the accused on notice of what conduct was prohibited [Schiselman v. Trust Co. Bank,......
  • 9 Contempt
    • United States
    • State Bar of Georgia Georgia Benchbook 2015 edition
    • Invalid date
    ...contempt from a disobedience of a court order, one must find: A. Accused had actual knowledge of the court order [Lassiter v. Swift & Co.,204 Ga. 561, 50 SE2d 359 (1948)]; B. Order was definite enough to put the accused on notice of what conduct was prohibited [Schiselman v. Trust Co. Bank,......
  • Request a trial to view additional results

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