Barnhart v. Western Maryland Ry. Co.

• Decision Date: 11 June 1942
• Docket Number: No. 4918.,4918.
• Citation: 128 F.2d 709
• Parties: BARNHART et al. v. WESTERN MARYLAND RY. CO.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

128 F.2d 709 (1942)

BARNHART et al. v. WESTERN MARYLAND RY. CO.

No. 4918.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

June 11, 1942.

Isaac Lobe Straus, of Baltimore, Md., for appellants.

Walter C. Capper, of Cumberland, Md., and Eugene S. Williams, of Baltimore, Md., for appellee.

Before PARKER and DOBIE, Circuit Judges, and PAUL, District Judge.

DOBIE, Circuit Judge.

This is an appeal from a final judgment of the District Court of the United States for the District of Maryland, dismissing plaintiff-appellants' complaint. Judge Chesnut granted defendant-appellee's motion to dismiss the complaint on the following grounds: (1) the District Court lacked jurisdiction of the subject matter, (2) the complaint failed to state a valid claim or cause of action, and (3) the action, if any, had long been barred by limitations and laches.

The action was instituted by seven individuals who constituted a "committee representing and acting for the Federation of Shop Craft Employees, Maintenance of Way Employees, and Signal Man Employees of the Western Maryland Railway", on behalf of themselves and approximately 1,200 other alleged employees of the Railway Company. The complaint is in the nature of a bill in equity asking for an injunction, an accounting, and a determination of appellants' status or relationship. The origin and history of appellants' grievances are narrated in the prolix complaint which exceeds 17 pages in length. In this respect, the bill is contrary to both the spirit and the express requirement of Rule 8(a) of the new Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, 28 U.S.C.A. following section 723c, which provides that the pleading shall contain a short and plain statement of the grounds upon which the court's jurisdiction depends and a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief. For purposes of brevity, therefore, we adopt as fair and complete, the concise, but fully ample and accurate, analysis of the complaint as summarized by Judge Chesnut in the opinion below (41 F.Supp. 898, 899):

"It is developed in the complaint that during the war of 1917, the management of the railroads was taken over by the Government and they were returned to private ownership on March 1, 1920. Immediately prior thereto Congress passed the Transportation Act of 1920 approved February 28th. Chapter 7 of the Act, 45 U.S.C.A. §§ 131-146, created the Railroad Labor Board for the purpose of promoting amicable adjustments of disputes between the railroads and their employes with regard to the rate of wages and working conditions of employes, and authorized the Board in certain contingencies to make and publish decisions as to what would constitute, in the opinion of the Board, just and reasonable rates and conditions. On July 20, 1920, the Board decided a dispute as to wages and on April 14, 1921, it published its decision No. 119 dealing with the subject of rules regulating working conditions. In the latter decision the Board determined that the working conditions and agreements in force under the authority of the United States Railroad Administration should cease and terminate July 1, 1921; and for the immediate future the Board called upon the officers of the railroads and their employes to designate and authorize representatives to confer on and decide disputes relating to working conditions so far as possible, consistent with some general principles then set forth by the Board. On November 29, 1921, the Board rendered a supplemental decision whereby it promulgated a new set of rules for working conditions. The complaint alleges that the Railway accepted the ruling and printed it and put it into effect, and the complaint further alleges that the said rules constituted contracts and agreements between the Western Maryland Railway and its employes and that said contracts and agreements were known and described as `Negotiations of rules and working conditions under decision 119 of the United States Railway Labor Board'. The contracts themselves are not set out at length or annexed to the complaint which stated that copies thereof were in possession of the defendant company which would be called upon to produce them at the hearing of the cause. The complaint, however, does include the wording of two of said rules, Nos. 37 and 183. Rule 37 provided that employes should not be dismissed without a fair hearing and trial; and Rule 183 provided that the rules should remain in effect until superseded or amended after thirty days notice of changes proposed and conferences thereon held.

"The complaint then alleges that on March 16, 1922, the Western Maryland Railway Company summarily, arbitrarily and illegally discharged and dismissed the plaintiffs and other employes without compliance with said Rules Nos. 37 and 183; and that the circumstances of said discharge were that the Railway Company entered into contracts with the Dixon Construction and Repair Company and other contractors for the operation of its railway shops and posted notices that `all positions in the Maintenance of Ways of Mechanical Department of Western Maryland Railway Company and its leased and operating lines below the position of mechanical engineer and master car builder (with their personal office force) are abolished. The work heretofore assigned to the positions abolished will thereafter be performed by Dixon Construction and Repair Company'. And on the same day (March 11, 1922) the Dixon Construction and Repair Company posted a notice that employes of the Western Maryland Railway Company in the maintenance of equipment of mechanical department in the positions abolished March 16, 1922, who wished employment of a similar nature on or after March 16, 1922, might apply to the contractor. Thereafter on March 23, 1922, a committee of the employes notified the new contractor that unless the wage scale formerly maintained by the Railway Company was continued, the employes would discontinue work or in other words, go on strike, which in fact thereafter became effective on March 25, 1922. The Labor Board was notified of this latter dispute, and on November 13, 1922, it published its decision No. 1361 to the effect that contracts by the railroad with the Dixon Construction and Repair Company and other contractors were in violation of the Transportation Act of 1920 insofar as they purported or were construed by the carrier to remove the employes from the application of the Act, and that the contracts affecting the wages and working rules of said employes (of the contractors) were in violation of various decisions of the Labor Board; that the shop employes of the contractor continued to be under the jurisdiction of the Labor Board and subject to the application of the Transportation Act of 1920 and the decisions of the Labor Board; and the carriers were directed to take up with the employes the matter of reinstatement of any interested employes or their representatives.

"The complaint does not state specifically which, if any, of the plaintiffs did apply to the Railway for reinstatement, but does allege in more general terms that the plaintiffs were then and always have been ready and willing to perform their duties of employment for the Railway Company in accordance with the alleged contracts and agreements and have so tendered themselves to the defendants and have unsuccessfully invited conferences thereupon.

"The complaint further alleges that the defendant refused to accept the decision of the Labor Board as valid and effective, and on December 21, 1922, the President of the Railway wrote the Labor Board denying its jurisdiction and authority to render the decision and requested the Board to join the Railway in obtaining the decision of a court as to the status of the contracts and the Board's decisions; but that no such proceeding was taken or prosecuted and the defendant Railway continued to refuse to recognize, accept or apply the Labor Board's decision and continued to carry out its contracts with the independent contractors and continued to treat the employes as no longer employes of the Railway Company; but that on February 1, 1934, the Coordinator of Railroads of the United States ordered the contracts between the Railway Company and the alleged independent contractors abolished as illegal, and accordingly the Railway Company abrogated them; and thereupon it originated and maintained a company union of its employes, and by intimidation and coercion forced such of its employes as it could into the said company union and out of the regular union of said employes which was independent of said company's domination. The complaint further alleges that in 1934 and 1935 the plaintiffs or their representatives appealed to the Railroad Adjustment Board at Chicago (which had succeeded the National Labor Board) and to the National Mediation Board at Washington, D.C., but that both last-named Boards disclaimed any jurisdiction in the matter."

We now proceed to discuss each of the grounds assigned by the court below in granting appellee's motion to dismiss the complaint.

Jurisdiction of the District Court.

There is literally nothing in appellants' complaint to indicate that the federal courts have jurisdiction over this controversy, apart from the fact that no jurisdictional allegation is made. Since the question of jurisdiction must be determined from the face of the complaint, Carolina & N. W. Ry. Co. v. Town of Lincolnton, 4 Cir., 33 F.2d 719, we have carefully examined the statements presented in that pleading. No claim to diversity of citizenship is there made, and the only possible ground for jurisdiction is whether there are in the complaint sufficient allegations to disclose that the controversy is one arising under the laws of the United States, inasmuch as the complaint fails to allege that any provision of either the federal constitution or a federal treaty is involved.

The United States District Courts are given...