Aladdin Industries, Inc. v. Associated Transport, Inc.

• Decision Date: 06 August 1958
• Citation: 45 Tenn.App. 329,323 S.W.2d 222
• Court: Tennessee Court of Appeals
• Parties: ALADDIN INDUSTRIES, INC. v. ASSOCIATED TRANSPORT, INC. et al. ALADDIN RADIO INDUSTRIES, INC. v. ADKINS TRANSFER COMPANY, Inc., et al.

Page 222

323 S.W.2d 222

45 Tenn.App. 329

ALADDIN INDUSTRIES, INC. v. ASSOCIATED TRANSPORT, INC. et al.

ALADDIN RADIO INDUSTRIES, INC. v. ADKINS TRANSFER COMPANY, Inc., et al.

Court of Appeals of Tennessee, Middle Section.

Aug. 6, 1958.

Rehearing Denied Dec. 5, 1958.

Certiorari Denied by Supreme Court April 8, 1959.

Waller, Davis & Lansden, Nashville, Walton H. Hamilton, Washington, D. C., all for Aladdin Industries, Inc., and Aladdin Radio Industries, Inc.

Cooper, Mitch & Black, Birmingham Ala., Williams, Harwell, Howser & Thomas and Moore, Crownover, Branstetter & Folk, Nashville, for Douglas McCrary and others.

FELTS, Judge.

These were contempt cases, ancillary to the main cases above styled, in which we affirmed the Chancellor's decrees punishing appellants ¹ for contempt for violating the temporary injunction granted by him to preserve the status quo pending a hearing and determination of the cases (first case, Tenn.App., 298 S.W.2d 770; second case, Memo op. July 27, 1956, unreported).

The contemners in both cases joined in a petition to the Supreme Court of the United States for the writ of certiorari. That Court granted the writ, vacated our decrees, and remanded the cases, in an opinion in these words:

'No. 116. Douglas McCrary, M. M. Bratton, et al., petitioners, v. Aladdin Industries, Inc. * * * Per Curiam: The petition for writ of certiorari is granted. The judgment of the Court of Appeals of the State of Tennessee, Middle Division, is vacated and the case is remanded for consideration in light of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Helpers & Taxicab Drivers, etc. v. Kerrigan Iron Works, Inc., 353 U.S. 968, 77 S.Ct. 1055, 1 L.Ed.2d 1133.' McCrary v. Aladdin Industries, Inc., 355 U.S. 8, 78 S.Ct. 12, 2 L.Ed.2d 22.

And the Court's mandate was that our decrees were vacated and the cases remanded to this Court 'for consideration in light of Teamsters [etc.] v. Kerrigan Iron Works, Inc., 353 U.S. 968, 77 S.Ct. 1055, 1 L.Ed.2d 1133.' The Kerrigan decision reversed our decree (Kerrigan Iron Works, Inc. v. Cook Truck Lines, Inc., Tenn.App., 296 S.W.2d 379) in an opinion as follows:

'No. 818. Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Helpers & Taxicab Drivers, Local Union No. 327, et al., Petitioners, v. Kerrigan Iron Works, Inc., et al. * * * Per Curiam: The petition for writ of certiorari is granted and the judgment of the Court of Appeals of Tennessee is reversed. Weber v. Anheuser Busch, Inc., 348 U.S. 468, 75 S.Ct. 480, 99 L.Ed. 546; General Drivers, etc. v American Tobacco Co., 348 U.S. 978, 75 S.Ct. 569, 99 L.Ed. 762.' 353 U.S. 968, 77 S.Ct. 1055, 1 L.Ed.2d 1133.

For consideration of these cases in the light of that case, we restored them to the docket for hearing, and oral arguments have been heard and briefs filed by both sides, as to the decrees we should enter under the mandate.

Appellants contend that the Kerrigan case is a precedent for these cases, requiring us to reverse the Chancellor's decrees and discharge appellants as contemners; that it shows that the Chancellor had no jurisdiction of the subject matter in these cases, because that was a labor dispute which had been pre-empted by federal from state power; and that the Chancellor's temporary injunction was void and might be contemned with impunity.

Appellees insist that the Kerrigan case is no precedent for these cases; that the Chancellor had jurisdiction to determine all the questions, including that of his own jurisdiction, and to grant a temporary injunction to preserve the status quo pending such determination; that appellants could not collaterally attack or flout the injunction, but were bound to respect it pending a direct and orderly review of it; and that their definance of it was contempt for which it was the Chancellor's duty to punish them.

It would seem that if the Supreme Court had regarded its ruling in the Kerrigan case as a precedent requiring reversals in these cases, it would have entered the reversals, as it did in that case; and that the fact that it remanded the cases for consideration in the light of that case, indicates that they may be ruled by it or may be distinguished from it, either on a federal ground or a non-federal ground adequate to support the Chancellor's decrees.

It is true these cases and the Kerrigan case had certain similarities or characteristics in common which, without referring to the differences, we stressed and emphasized in our former opinions (Kerrigan, 296 S.W.2d 379; Aladdin, 298 S.W.2d 770), because we thought they were determinative and called for the conclusion expressed by us. But there are at least these two obvious and important differences between that case and these:

1. Differences in parties, pleadings, and issues in the main suits.

(a) The Kerrigan case was a suit by a shipper against both the carriers and the labor union and its agents; and the relief sought was an injunction (1) to require the carriers to continue their service and (2) to enjoin the union and its agents from 'concerted' conduct alleged to be 'a conspiracy' and an 'illegal boycott' to force complainant to accede to the demands of the other union striking and picketing complainant's plant. ²

(b) In the main Aladdin cases the suit was by a shipper against the carriers alone. No labor union and no union agent was a party to the bill. The only relief sought was an injunction to require the carriers to continue their customary service to complainant's plant. While the bill did state, on information, that the reason the carriers refused to render the service was that their employees would not cross another union's picket line at the plant, it did not state or show that any of such employees were union men or in anywise concerned in any labor dispute. ³

2. Kerrigan was the main suit and these were ancillary.

(a) The Kerrigan case was the main suit against the carriers, the union and its agents. There was no question of contempt. Defendants respected the authority of the court to try the case, and brought up its final decree for direct review by appeal. The only question was whether the action of the Chancellor, in assuming jurisdiction and rendering the final decree, was correct or not, and if not, the decree would be reversed though not void but only voidable or erroneous.

(b) These cases were not the main suits but ancillary contempt proceedings therein, under the same style. Appellants did not seek any orderly review, but flouted the temporary injunction as void and defied the court as a usurper. After being adjudged in contempt by the Chancellor, they brought up the contempt decree by appeal. The question is whether the temporary injunction was void. This depends on whether the Chancellor had jurisdiction to grant it, and this is to be determined upon the bill on which the court assumed jurisdiction and issued the temporary injunction.

Do these cases, despite these differences, fall within the principle of the Kerrigan decision? What is that principle? It is not stated in that opinion but is to be sought in the cases there cited, particularly the Weber case, since the other case cited, the American Tobacco Company, was itself a per curiam citing the Weber case and depending on it, as we understand.

In the Weber case a labor union, the bargaining agent of employees of complainant, went on strike and picketed complainant's plant to compel it to insert, in their proposed new collective agreement, a promise that it would have its millwright work done only by contractors who had collective agreements with the union. Complainant charged the union with 'an unfair labor practice' under sec. 8(b)(4)(D) of the Taft-Hartley Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 158(b)(4)(D), before the National Labor Relations Board, and the Board dismissed this charge.

In the meantime, before the Board had acted on the charge, complainant sued the union in the state court to enjoin the strike and picketing, alleging it constituted 'a secondary boycott' under state law, and also 'an unfair labor practice' under section 8(b)(4) of the federal Act. This latter averment was held to make the case outside state power and within exclusive jurisdiction of the Board. The Court said:

'We realize that it is not easy for a state court to decide, merely on the basis of a complaint and answer, whether the subject matter is the concern exclusively of the federal Board and withdrawn from the State * * *. But where the moving party itself alleges unfair labor practices, where the facts reasonably bring the controversy within the sections prohibiting these practices, and where the conduct, if not prohibited by the federal Act, may be reasonably deemed to come within the protection afforded by that Act, the state court must decline jurisdiction in deference to the tribunal which Congress has selected for determining such issues in the first instance.' 348 U.S. 481, 75 S.Ct. 488, 99 L.Ed. 558.

It seems that this is the principle of the Weber case, and that the Court held that the Kerrigan case was brought within this principle by the averment of the bill that defendants (the union and others) were guilty of 'CONCERTED ACTION', 'CONSPIRACY', AND 'AN illegal boycott', to force complainant to yield to the other union demands, and the state court erred in assuming jurisdiction; but whether this action was void, or merely voidable or erroneous, does not appear.

In these cases the question of the Chancellor's jurisdiction of the subject matter is to be determined upon the state of the case at the time the court assumed jurisdiction and issued the temporary injunction--that is, upon the allegations of the original bill, which must be taken as true for the purpose of testing jurisdiction. 1 Crownover's Gibson's Suits in Chancery, 5th ed., sec. 146; Myers v. Wolf, 162 Tenn. 42, 50, 34 S.W.2d 201, 203; Malden Trust Co. v. Brooks, 276 Mass. 464, 177 N.E. 629, 80 A.L.R. 1028; Moore v. Chesapeake & O. R. Co., 291 U.S. 205, 210, 54 S.Ct. 402, 78 L.Ed. 755, 759; Brown v. Coumanis, 5...