Allis-Chalmers Co. v. Reliable Lodge

• Decision Date: 18 October 1901
• Docket Number: 25,976.
• Citation: 111 F. 264
• Parties: ALLIS CHALMERS CO. v. RELIABLE LODGE et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois

111 F. 264

ALLIS CHALMERS CO. v. RELIABLE LODGE et al.

No. 25,976.

United States Circuit Court, N.D. Illinois, Northern Division.

October 18, 1901

Conspiracy 8

Where a labor organization whose members are engaged in a strike undertakes to prevent the employer from carrying on its business by preventing other men from remaining in, or entering, its service, by systematically maintaining pickets around and about the entrances to its premises, virtually placing them in a stage of seige, and it is shown that strikers and others incited by them have committed assaults upon workmen employed therein, and have employed threats and intimidation against such workmen to such an extent that the latter do not dare to leave the works through fear of bodily injury, and their employer is compelled to provide board and lodging for them within the premises, and other workmen are for the same reason prevented from entering its employment to its irreparable injury, such state of facts clearly justifies the conclusion that the defendant organization and its members have not confined themselves to lawful methods of persuasion and argument, and that they are engaged in a conspiracy to stop the business of the employer by intimidation and violence, which entitles the employer to protection by injunction against the continuance of such unlawful acts.

Pam Calhoun & Glennon, for complainant.

Hornstein & Coith, for defendants.

KOHLSAAT District Judge.

The bill in this case alleges that the workmen employed in certain departments of complainant's manufacturing plants have left such employment in a body; have organized a 'strike'; have, for the purpose of enforcing said 'strike' and compelling complainant to accede to their demands, conspired to use organized efforts to injure complainant's business, and to cause complainant great pecuniary loss; have, in pursuance of such conspiracy established patrols or pickets about complainant's several premises; and have, by acts of violence, as well as by other actions and words calculated to intimidate, caused such persons as desired to enter or remain in the employ of complainant to fear bodily injury in the event they do not refrain from such employment. The bill further alleges that many acts of violence have been committed against employes of complainant by strikers and by members of the lodges made parties defendant; that, because of the fear of said employes to go upon the streets of Chicago, complainant is compelled to maintain said employes within its premises, at great cost to it and injustice to them; that complainant's business has been injured to the extent of more than $100,000 by reason of said conspiracy and the acts of defendants in pursuance thereof; that the persons committing such acts are irresponsible; and that the damage done to complainant's business is, by reason of the premises, irreparable. The bill prays for the usual relief, and also for a temporary injunction restraining the various lodges made parties defendant, their officers and members, as well as the individuals specifically named as defendants, from conspiring to injure complainant's business and property, and from in any manner compelling or inducing, by the use of threats, intimidation of any sort, fraud, deception, or violence, any persons to leave complainant's employment, or not to enter its employ, if desirous of so doing, and from doing any act or thing whatsoever by any of the aforesaid means or methods in furtherance of a purpose to impede, interrupt, obstruct, or interfere with the business of complainant, or to impede any of its officers or employees in the free and unhindered conduct and control of complainant's business; also that the defendants and each of them, and their confederates, aiders, and abettors, be restrained from, both singly and in combination with others, picketing, guarding, obstructing, impeding, besetting, or patrolling the streets, alleys, or approaches to the premises of complainant, or ordering the same to be done, with the purpose and in such manner as to intimidate, threaten, impede, obstruct, or coerce any of the employes of complainant or persons seeking employment of the complainant.

In support of this motion complainant presents numerous affidavits, from which it appears that many of the present employes of complainant have been waylaid and badly beaten in going to and from the works of complainant; that the present employes are all in great fear of bodily injury in the event they leave the premises of complainant; that these assaults are committed both near complainant's work and near the homes of such employes in distant parts of the city; that because of this fear on the part of said employes it has become necessary for complainant to provide for the board and lodging of said employes within its works, in order to retain them in its employ; that it is practically impossible for such employes to enter or leave said works without being accosted by patrols or pickets, and assaulted or menaced by acts or threats, with bodily injury in the event they remain in such employ; and that persons approaching said works for the purpose of obtaining employment from complainant are in like manner subjected to threats and intimidation.

By way of reply, two pleas have been filed,-- one by defendant Ireland, averring that complainant is a trust, and therefore has no standing in equity; and the other by defendant Roderick, averring that complainant is a member of a voluntary association or combination of employers organized for the purpose of fighting the International Association of Machinists in the matters involved in this suit, and the methods pursued by said combination of employers are similar to the methods of defendants complained of in the bill. Neither of these pleas can be considered upon this application, at this...