American Federation of State, County and Municipal Emp. v. Dawkins

• Citation: 104 So.2d 827,268 Ala. 13
• Decision Date: 28 August 1958
• Docket Number: 3 Div. 821
• Parties: AMERICAN FEDERATION OF STATE, COUNTY AND MUNICIPAL EMPLOYEES v. Melvin DAWKINS et al.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

Page 827

104 So.2d 827

268 Ala. 13

AMERICAN FEDERATION OF STATE, COUNTY AND MUNICIPAL EMPLOYEES v. Melvin DAWKINS et al.

3 Div. 821.

Supreme Court of Alabama.

Aug. 28, 1958.

Goldberg, Feller & Bredhoff and Herbert S. Thatcher, Washington D. C., and Cooper, Mitch & Black, Birmingham, for appellant.

John Patterson, Atty. Gen., and Gordon Madison, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellees.

SIMPSON, Justice.

This is an appeal from a ruling of the lower court sustaining the demurrer to a bill praying for declaratory judgment and injunction.

Appellant is an unincorporated association affiliated with the AFL-CIO, having its principal office in Washington, D. C. It is engaged in organizing and recruiting members among civilian public employees for the purpose of collective bargaining. Appellant's bill alleges that it derives all of its income from the dues paid by its members who are employed by governmental bodies or agencies. We will sometimes hereafter refer to appellant as the 'Union'. Appellees are incumbent members and officers of the Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, hereafter called the 'Board'. The suit is concerned with the constitutional validity of Act 720, H. 231, approved September 17, 1953, General Acts of Alabama, 1953, p. 974, which we will hereafter refer to as the 'Solomon Bill'. The text of the statute is set out in the earlier case of Government & Civic Employees Organizing Committee, C.I.O. v. Windsor, 262 Ala. 285, 78 So.2d 646. Briefly the overall effect of the statute is to take away from a State employee merit system privileges and benefits if such employee should become a member of a labor union.

That phase of the bill praying for a declaratory judgment seeks to have the statute declared unconstitutional as applied to the Union, because it violates the due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution or, in the alternative, that in order to avoid a construction of the statute rendering it unconstitutional, it should be adjudicated that the statute has no application to the Union or its members, or that appellant is not a labor union or labor organization as defined in the statute. That feature of the bill praying for an injunction seeks to enjoin the appellees and their successors in office from enforcing or threatening to enforce the statute against the Union or any of its members.

Appellees' demurrer addressed to the bill as a whole contained the following pertinent grounds: There is no equity in the bill; it does not state a justiciable controversy; the matters alleged have already been litigated and decided contrary to the complainants, and, as amended, that the matters alleged in the bill as having occurred between the 'Committee' and respondents' predecessors in office are not such matters as may be set up in the complaint as a basis for the relief prayed for.

It should be first noted that the applicability of the Solomon Bill to appellant and its members was litigated and decided in the Windsor case, supra. The effect of the ruling in that case was that the former Government and Civic Employees Organizing Committee (now merged into the appellant union) was a labor union within the terms of the Solomon Bill and was therefore subject to its provisions. The Committee's rules and regulations now govern the appellant, as appellant Union is substantially identical with the Committee in membership, objects and method of operation according to the averments of the bill.

On a careful consideration, we have concluded that the trial court ruled correctly in sustaining the demurrer. The bill lacked equity in failing to show a justicable controversy. Before discussing the several grounds of the demurrer, we will refer to the cases which seem to bear on the questions posed by the appeal. Equity will not entertain a suit merely to vindicate an abstract principle of justice or to determine a dispute which involves neither benefit to be gained nor injury suffered. Medical Society of Mobile County v. Walker, 245 Ala. 135, 16 So.2d 321; Cullman Property Co. v. H. H. Hitt Lumber Co., 201 Ala. 150, 77 So. 574; Foster v. Mansfield, C. & L. M. R. Co., 146, U.S. 88, 13 S.Ct. 28, 36 L.Ed. 899; Williams v. Hagood, 98 U.S. 72, 25 L.Ed. 51; 19 Am.Jur. 50, Equity, § 21; 30 C.J.S. Equity § 13, p. 333. To be entitled to claim equitable relief, the complainant must show a controversy which will cause actual harm to him. Futhermore, a court of chancery will not entertain a bill which seeks merely a declaration of future rights (Cross v. De Valle, 1 Wall. 5, 68 U.S. 5, 17 L.Ed. 515); nor will a possible future violation of law be restrained. United States v. Trans-Missouri Freight Association, 166 U.S. 290, 17 S.Ct. 540, 41 L.Ed. 1007; 19 Am.Jur. 51, Equity, § 21. An impending or threatened invasion of some legal right of the complainant, and some interest in preventing the wrong sought to be perpetrated must be shown. 28 Am.Jur. 218, 220-221, Injunctions, §§ 25 and 28. A court of equity has no power to enjoin unless the conditions sought to be restrained have already arisen and come into being, or, in other words, the abstract right must assume a concrete form before it becomes property which in the judicial sense, is capable of protection by injunction. But a concrete case is presented whenever a right of the plaintiff is threatened by the defendant and the damage would be irreparable. 28 Am.Jur. 219, Injunctions, § 26; 30 C.J.S. Equity § 13, p. 333. Equity jurisdiction is limited to such matters as are practical and call for present action in the premises, and on which the court may properly pronounce a present decree. United States v. Central Stockholders' Corp. of Vallejo, 9 Cir., 52 F.2d 322, at pages 338, 339. Equity will not act in anticipation of merely possible future controversies; plaintiff's right must have been actually involved. Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority, 297 U.S. 288, at pages 324, 325, 56 S.Ct. 466, at pages 472, 473, 80 L.Ed. 688. Or, if the relief sought is preventive, there must be a state of affairs which actually threatens such right and calls for present relief. The court will not undertake to determine academic, moot, or abstract questions, to declare future rights, to lay down rules for the future conduct of individuals, or simply to advise parties, where real interests and questions are not involved. A moot case or question is a case or question in or on which there is no real controversy; a case which seeks to determine an abstract question which does not rest on existing facts or rights, or involve conflicting rights so far as plaintiff is concerned. Postal Telegraph-Cable Co. v. City of Montgomery, 193 Ala. 234, 69 So. 428. The function or duty to a judicial tribunal is to determine real controversies relative to the legal rights of persons or property, which are actually involved in the particular case properly brought before it. Mills v. Green, 159 U.S. 651, 16 S.Ct. 132, 40 L.Ed. 293; Postal Telegraph-Cable Co. v. City of Montgomery, supra.

These general principles are particularly applicable to bills seeking declaratory relief. Curjel v. Ash, 263 Ala. 585, 83 So.2d 293; Alabama State Milk Control Board v. Graham, 250 Ala. 49, 33 So.2d 11; Gilmer v. Gilmer, 245 Ala. 450, 17 So.2d 529; Shadix v. City of Birmingham, 251 Ala. 610, 38 So.2d 851; Talton v. Dickinson, 261 Ala. 11, 72 So.2d 723; Saenger Theatres Corp. v. McDermott, 237 Ala. 489, 187 So. 460; Bagwell v. Woodward Iron Co., 236 Ala. 668, 184 So. 692.

Against the background of the before-mentioned principles stating the necessity of a justiciable controversy, we must examine the appellant's bill with that strict construction required by our system of pleading. Many allegations in the bill which would tend to show a justiciable controversy and which state facts that would give rise to an inference of a bona fide contest are phrased as alternative averments with respect to parties respondent. For instance, parties respondent are referred to in the bill as 'Respondents, or their predecessors in office', and 'respondents' acts (or those of respondents' predecessors)'. Since the averments of a bill on demurrer are to be construed most strongly against the complainant, alternative averments are insufficient, unless each alternative shows a good cause of action. Where one alternative is bad, the demurrer should be sustained generally to the bill as a whole and not just to the alternative averment. Pleadings are no stronger than their weakest alternative, or to say it in other words, a chain is no stronger than its weakest link. Pickens County v. National Surety Co., 229 Ala. 191, 155 So. 620; Lacy v. Fowler, 206 Ala. 679, 91 So. 593; Cudd v. Wood, 205 Ala. 682, 89 So. 52; Union Cemetery Co. v. Jackson, 188 Ala. 599, 65 So. 986; Shannon v. Long, 180 Ala. 128, 60 So. 273; Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Woolfolk, 178 Ala. 190, 59 So. 633.

Applying this rule to the alternative averments before us, it must be held that they fail to assert a justiciable controversy, as pointed out by the demurrer. A suit filed against the present respondents can gain nothing by allegations of acts or threats made by respondents' predecessors in office. Neither can this case be controlled by the Windsor case, supra, where the Court held that the bill there showed a justiciable controversy between the then complainant and respondents. The present litigation must be considered entirely separate from that case. That case was for a declaration upon different issues than time one before us now, and since that time complainant union has merged with the A. F. L. and the respondents in that case have retired from office by virtue of the expiration of their terms. We have before us now, therefore, a new cause of action, a new complainant by merger, and different parties respondent. The justiciable controversy found in the Windsor case was a controversy only between the parties in...