Almac's Inc. v. R. I. Grape Boycott Committee

• Decision Date: 20 April 1972
• Docket Number: No. 1026-A,1026-A
• Citation: 290 A.2d 52,110 R.I. 36
• Parties: , 80 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2295, 68 Lab.Cas. P 52,769 ALMAC'S INC. v. R.I. GRAPE BOYCOTT COMMITTEE et al. ppeal.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

Page 52

290 A.2d 52

110 R.I. 36, 80 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2295, 68 Lab.Cas. P 52,769

ALMAC'S INC. v. R.I. GRAPE BOYCOTT COMMITTEE et al.

No. 1026-Appeal.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

April 20, 1972.

Joseph G. Kinder, Eugene V. Higgins, Providence, for plaintiff

Abedon, Michaelson, Stanzler & Biener, Julius C. Michaelson, Richard A. Skolnik, Providence, for defendants.

OPINION

ROBERTS, Chief Justice.

This civil action was brought seeking to enjoin the defendants from picketing a number of retail food stores operated by the plaintiff within the state of Rhode Island. After hearing thereon a justice of the Superior Court granted the injunctive relief, and the defendants are now in this court prosecuting an appeal from that judgment.

It appears from the record that plaintiff operates several supermarkets, so called, within the state and has a valid and existing labor contract with a local of the Amalgamated Meat Cutters International Union, an affiliate of the AFL-CIO. The defendants, members of the Rhode Island Grape Boycott Committee, are organized for the purpose of supporting and raising funds for the benefit of United Farm Workers Organizing Committee, a group that was engaged in organizing agricultural workers who are employed by certain grape growers in the state of California. It is not disputed that during the summer and early fall of 1969 defendants were seeking to organize support in this state for the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee in its attempt to obtain collective bargaining rights as the representative of the California agricultural workers from the grape growers in that state.

Pursuant to this design, defendants undertook to organize groups to picket supermarkets where California grapes were sold. It is conceded that plaintiff's outlets, as well as others, usually offered California-grown grapes for sale and were picketed without objection until September 26, 1969. At that time the picketing of plaintiff's supermarket located on Taunton Avenue in the city of East Providence is alleged to have become disorderly and, therefore, required on two occasions the intervention of one or more members of the police department of that city. There is considerable conflict as to the nature and scope of the activities of the pickets which were alleged to have been disorderly. The trial justice in his rescript sets forth his conclusions of fact based upon the credible evidence, stating quite clearly that he considered the evidence to support a finding that the picketing was disorderly and interfering with potential patrons entering the premises of the Taunton Avenue store.

After the hearing had concluded, the parties, at the direction of the court, filed written memoranda of the applicable law as it related to the contentions they advanced. The trial justice thereafter rendered a decision in which he held, contrary to the principal contention raised by defendants, that the controversy between plaintiff and defendants was not a labor dispute within the contemplation of the definition thereof as set out in G.L.1956 (1968 Reenactment) § 28-10-3. Then on November 14, 1969, he entered a judgment granting injunctive relief. ¹

In this court defendants have urged several grounds of error in the action of the trial justice in granting injunctive relief. The primary and, in our opinion, dispositive contention is that the Superior Court was without jurisdiction to grant such injunctive relief by virtue of the provisions of §§ 28-10-2, 28-10-3, and 28-10-4. Section 28-10-2 provides, in pertinent part: 'No court of this state shall have jurisdiction to issue a temporary or permanent injunction in any case involving a labor dispute, except after hearing the testimony of witnesses in open court, with opportunity for cross-examination, in support of the allegations of a complaint made under oath, and testimony in opposition thereto, if offered, and except after findings of fact by the court, to the effect-* * *.'

The statute then goes on to specify the findings of fact that must be made by the court in order to acquire jurisdiction to issue an injunction in a labor dispute as contemplated in § 28-10-2. These findings, all of which must be made to confer jurisdiction, ² are: (1) that unlawful acts have been threatened and will be committed unless restrained or have been committed and will be continued unless restrained; (2) that substantial and irreparable injury to the complainant's property will result; (3) that as to each item of relief granted, greater injury will be inflicted upon the complainant by the denial of relief than will be inflicted upon the defendants by the granting of relief; (4) that the complainant has no adequate remedy at law; and (5) that the public officers charged with the duty to protect the complainant's property are unable or unwilling to furnish adequate protection.

In short, the basic contention of defendants is that the court granted injunctive relief in a 'labor dispute' without complying with the provisions of § 28-10-2 which require the findings of fact prescribed therein and, therefore, was without jurisdiction to grant such relief. As we have noted, the trial justice found that the controversy between plaintiff and defendants did not constitute a labor dispute as contemplated in § 28-10-2.

The questions to which we must direct our attention, then, are, first, whether the controversy here under scrutiny was a labor dispute within the contemplation of § 28-10-2 and, if that be so, second, did the court acquire jurisdiction to grant injunctive relief by reason of its clear compliance with the fact-finding requirements set out in § 28-10-2.

We turn, then, to the first question as to whether the controversy was a labor dispute. A labor dispute is defined in § 28-10-3. The first paragraph of that statute provides: 'The term 'labor dispute' includes any controversy concerning terms or conditions of employment, or concerning the association or representation of persons in negotiating, fixing, maintaining, changing, or seeking to arrange terms or conditions of employment, regardless of whether or not the disputants stand in the proximate relation of employer and employee.'

The second paragraph of § 28-10-3 provides, in substance, for the exclusion from the definition of a labor dispute of a controversy arising out of a demand that '* * * an employer recognize or bargain with a labor organization while another labor organization is the representative of employees in such unit as certified by the state labor relations commission, or the national labor relations board * * *.' This provision, in our opinion, was inserted into the legislation in order to enable the court to exercise its injunctive powers in cases involving demands by a competing union made upon an employer whose employees at that time were represented by a certified bargaining agent. It is not pertinent, in our opinion, to the issues raised in this case.

The trial justice found that the instant controversy did not constitute a labor dispute as the same is defined in § 28-10-3. In so doing, it is our opinion that he erred primarily because he overlooked the character of the controversy under consideration. Clearly, on the facts defendants were conducting a secondary boycott. The definition of a labor dispute in our act is identical with the definition of a labor dispute set out in the Norris-LaGuardia Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 113(c).

That section provides that the controversy must involve terms or conditions of employment. The language specifically excludes the necessity that '* * * the disputants stand in the proximate relation of employer and employee.' The defendants in this case represent employees who seek recognition as a labor organization. They contend that they are attempting to exert economic pressure on the employer by informing the public that a particular product is produced by an employer who is resisting the efforts of his employees to organize an effective collective bargaining unit. This is a classic example of a secondary boycott. F. Frankfurter & N. Greene, The Labor Injunction 43 (1930). This controversy does involve terms and conditions of employment and is, therefore, in our opinion, a labor dispute as defined by our statute, § 28-10-3. To hold otherwise is to ignore not only the language of the statute but also the important social and economic policy which the act embodies.

It is clear that a secondary boycott is within the range of activity which is protected from injunction under the Norris-LaGuardia Act. Amalgamated Ass'n of Street, Electric Ry. & Motor Coach Employees of America v. Dixie Motor Coach Corp., 170 F.2d 902, 906-907 (8th Cir. 1948). A secondary boycott is employed to exert pressure on a third party, not directly involved in a dispute, with the design that this pressure will influence the outcome of the primary dispute between an employer and his employees. In Bakery Sales Drivers Local Union No. 33 v. Wagshal, 333 U.S. 437, 444, 68 S.Ct. 630, 633, 92 L.Ed. 792, 798 (1948), Justice Frankfurter points out that the '(s)ale by a merchant of non-union commodities is, no doubt, a traditional source of labor disputes within the scope of the Norris-LaGuardia Act.'

In this court plaintiff also contends that it was not error to grant injunctive relief to plaintiff in the circumstances. This on the theory that the Legislature, in enacting § 28-10-2, did not intend to restrict the court's resort to its injunctive powers in cases involving labor disputes to the extent that the Congress intended to restrict such resort to the injunctive process in the federal courts. This argument rests upon the slight difference between the language of § 28-10-2 of our anti-injunction statute and that contained in the federal act.

In the federal act the federal courts are prohibited from exercising the injunctive power 'in any case involving or growing out of a labor dispute.' (Emphasis ours) The...