AMALGAMATED ASS'N, ETC. v. Dixie Motor Coach Corp.

• Citation: 170 F.2d 902
• Decision Date: 26 November 1948
• Docket Number: No. 13716.,13716.
• Parties: AMALGAMATED ASS'N OF STREET, ELECTRIC RY. & MOTOR COACH EMPLOYEES OF AMERICA et al. (NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Intervener) v. DIXIE MOTOR COACH CORPORATION.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (8th Circuit)

170 F.2d 902 (1948)

AMALGAMATED ASS'N OF STREET, ELECTRIC RY. & MOTOR COACH EMPLOYEES OF AMERICA et al. (NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Intervener) v. DIXIE MOTOR COACH CORPORATION.

No. 13716.

United States Court of Appeals Eighth Circuit.

November 26, 1948.

Bernard Cushman, of Washington, D. C., Stein & Stein, of El Dorado, Ark., and Bert B. Larey, of Texarkana, Ark. (Hans J. Lehmann and O. David Zimring, both of Chicago, Ill., on the brief), for appellants.

Mozart G. Ratner, Principal Attorney, National Labor Relations Board, of Washington, D. C. (A. Norman Somers, Asst. Gen. Counsel, David P. Findling, Associate Gen. Counsel and Arnold Ordman, Attorney N.L.R.B., all of Washington, D. C., on the brief), for intervener, Labor Board.

Ned Stewart, of Texarkana, Ark., and Frank C. Biggs, of Dallas, Tex. (Biggs & Roberts, of Dallas, Tex., and Shaver, Stewart & Jones, of Texarkana, Tex., on the brief), for appellee.

Before GARDNER, Chief Judge, WOODROUGH and RIDDICK, Circuit Judges.

WOODROUGH, Circuit Judge.

This action was brought in the federal district court by the Dixie Motor Coach Corporation (referred to as Dixie) as plaintiff, against the Amalgamated Association of Street, Electric Railway and Motor Coach Employees of America, a labor organization (referred to as Amalgamated), and named individual members thereof as defendants, to obtain an injunction against the establishment and maintenance by defendants of a picket line about a bus depot operated by Dixie in Texarkana, Arkansas, and from in any way interfering with Dixie's operations of the bus terminal. It was alleged in the complaint that the Amalgamated had notified plaintiff that it intended to establish a picket line around plaintiff's bus terminal at Texarkana, Arkansas, unless the plaintiff would cease doing business with the Southern Bus Lines, Inc., a motor common carrier which used the bus terminal and facilities of the plaintiff pursuant to contract between the bus companies; that the employees of plaintiff are not represented by plaintiff nor claimed to be, but have other representation for collective bargaining purposes through whom contracts have been made and there is no labor dispute between plaintiff and its employees; that the employees of plaintiff are satisfied, but if defendants should establish a picket line about said terminal as threatened, plaintiff's employees concertedly would refuse to cross it and this would result in closing the bus terminal and in irreparable damage to plaintiff; that the controversy presented is one between plaintiff, who is a motor carrier of passengers and their baggage, express and mail in interstate and foreign commerce, and the defendant labor organization and its members, agents, servants and employees, and that the court had jurisdiction under the provisions of the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, popularly known as the Taft-Hartley Act; and that the acts threatened by defendants, if carried out, would constitute a violation of Section 303(a) of said Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 141 et seq. That there was no labor dispute prior to the threat made by defendants to establish said picket line around said bus terminal and that there is no labor dispute at the present time. Plaintiff prayed for a temporary and, after trial, a permanent injunction against the threatened picketing and any other interference with its operations. In their answer, the defendants asserted that the court was without jurisdiction to issue any injunction in the case which was described as involving or growing out of a labor dispute. It was alleged that Division 1127 of Amalgamated, of which the individual defendants were members, was involved in a labor dispute over working conditions and wages with Southern Bus Lines, Inc.; that Southern used plaintiff's bus terminal as a place of doing its business; that defendants intended to picket the plaintiff's bus terminal not against plaintiff or anyone except the Southern Bus Lines, Inc., and that the signs they will carry will state that Southern Bus Lines, Inc., is unfair and that Division No. 1127 of the Amalgamated is on strike. That said signs will not cause confusion and anyone reading them will know that said picketing is against the Southern Bus Lines, Inc., and not against plaintiff, and that defendants had the right, under the Fourteenth Amendment, to so publicize their dispute with Southern. They denied that their intended picketing would involve violation of Section 303(a) of the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, or that the court was authorized by said provisions to issue an injunction against them, and alleged that those provisions of said Act merely authorize an action for damages for unfair labor acts after the same have been found to be unfair by the National Labor Relations Board. They prayed that injunction be denied and the action dismissed.

After trial the court filed its opinion and entered findings of facts and conclusions of law and a decree of permanent injunction against defendants as prayed by plaintiff. This appeal is taken by the Amalgamated and the individual defendants to reverse the decree of injunction.

After the appeal had been lodged here the National Labor Relations Board, which Congress has charged with functions of administration of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 151 et seq., said Act as amended, and the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, filed its motion under Rule 18 of the Rules of this court for leave to intervene. It alleged that acts enjoined by the court below as violative of Section 303(a) of the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, 61 Stat. 136, 29 U.S. C.A. § 141 et seq., are, if violative of that Section, also declared by Section 8(b) (4) of the National Labor Relations Act as amended to be unfair labor practices, subject to the primary jurisdiction of the National Labor Relations Board; that Section 303 empowered the court below merely to award damages for its violation and not to issue an injunction, either temporary or permanent, at the instance of private persons such as plaintiff; and that aside from the power vested in the federal district courts by said Section 303 to award damages at the suit of a private party, the Board has exclusive jurisdiction to remedy such violations by cease-and-desist orders, and to petition the federal district courts for such injunctive relief as is necessary and proper pending final decision of the Board with respect to the matters involved. This court granted the Board's motion, and it has filed a brief in support of its contentions and participated in the oral argument.

The findings of facts, conclusions of law and opinion of the trial court are fully reported (D.C., 74 F.Supp. 952) and no issue is taken with the findings for the purposes of the appeal where they are strictly fact findings (except as it is asserted that some facts of record are inadequately covered).

The specific findings made by the court show that it found the material allegations of the plaintiff's complaint to be sustained by the proof, and the court concluded as a matter of law that the case presented, wherein defendants asserted and plaintiff denied the right to picket the Dixie terminal in order to stop Southern's business being carried on there, was not a case which involved or grew out of a labor dispute within the meaning and scope of the Norris LaGuardia Act, 29 U.S.C.A. §§ 101-115, and that under the provisions of Section 303(a) of the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, and by virtue of its inherent powers as a court of equity, it was authorized to issue the injunction at the instance of plaintiff, as prayed for, and that its power was not limited by the requirements of the Norris LaGuardia Act. There was no claim, and the court did not conclude that a case for injunction was made out if the provisions of the Norris LaGuardia Act limiting the power of the federal courts to issue injunctions in cases involving or growing out of labor disputes are applicable to the present case. In view of the publication of the report in the Federal Supplement we refer to the report to avoid needless repetition here.

On this appeal the controlling question for our decision is whether the federal district court was vested with jurisdiction to enjoin at the instance of the private party plaintiff, the threatened acts and conduct of secondary boycotting alleged and found by the court to constitute violations of Section 303(a) of the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947. The contentions for reversal which we deem conclusive are in substance:

1. That this case as disclosed by the pleadings and the evidence and the facts found by the court, is a case which involves and grows out of a labor dispute within the meaning and scope of the Norris LaGuardia Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 101-115, and the court was in error in concluding that it was not such a case and in awarding injunction against the threatened peaceful picketing in disregard of the limitations upon its powers imposed by the Norris LaGuardia Act, as amended, and contrary to the provisions of that Act as amended. That Congress has vested exclusively in the National Labor Relations Board the power to seek injunctive relief in courts against acts or conduct constituting unfair labor practices within the meaning of the National Labor Relations Act as amended.

2. That Section 303 of the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947 creates in private persons only the right to seek damages in the federal district courts for violations of that section, and the designation in the section of acts therein described as "unlawful, for the purposes of this section only" was not intended to authorize granting of injunctive relief by the federal courts at the suit of private parties and there was no inherent power in the court below to enter the decree of injunction sued for.

Opinion.

We think it fair to the district court to observe that it had heard and granted...