Benoit v. Amalgamated Local 299 United Elec. Radio and Mach. Workers of America

• Decision Date: 05 February 1963
• Citation: 188 A.2d 499,150 Conn. 266
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: Gessner K. BENOIT v. AMALGAMATED LOCAL 299 UNITED ELECTRICAL RADIO AND MACHINE WORKERS OF AMERICA et al. Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut

Page 499

188 A.2d 499

150 Conn. 266

Gessner K. BENOIT v. AMALGAMATED LOCAL 299 UNITED ELECTRICAL RADIO AND MACHINE WORKERS OF AMERICA et al.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

Feb. 5, 1963.

Samuel Gruder, Stamford, for appellants (named defendant and others).

Ronald J. Fracasse, New Haven, for appellee (plaintiff).

Before BALDWIN, C. J., and KING, MURPHY, SHEA and ALCORN, JJ.

ALCORN, Associate Justice.

The plaintiff brought this action against the named defendant, an unincorporated labor organization hereinafter called the union, and five individuals who were the international organizer of the union, a member of its executive board, its business agent, its president and one of its members. Nonsuits were entered in favor of the president of the union and the member of its executive board, and the plaintiff withdrew his action against the union's business agent. The trial proceeded against the union, the defendant Harry Kaplan, who was the union's international organizer, and the defendant Primo Ciccolallo, who was a member of the union. The complaint contained two counts, the first of which alleged in substance that, as a result of picketing incident to a strike, the plaintiff was wantonly and maliciously prevented from entering his employer's plant to work and was subjected to various wanton and malicious acts of assault and battery committed by the pickets, including Ciccolallo, acting under the direction, supervision and control of the union and the other individual defendants. The second count merely incorporated the allegations of the first count and added three paragraphs evidently intended to allege a civil conspiracy. Although the second count recites that the acts set forth in the first count were the result of an unlawful conspiracy, it fails to allege the purpose or objective of the claimed conspiracy and consequently is a defective statement of a cause of an action for conspiracy. Williams v. Maislen, 116 Conn. 433, 437, 165 A. 455.

The court construed the first count as stating a cause of action against the union and the individual defendants for causing the plaintiff a loss of earnings by preventing his entrance into his employer's plant. It construed the second count as stating a cause of action for a conspiracy between the union and the individual defendants to prevent the plaintiff from entering his employer's plant and to commit the attack made by Ciccolallo. On this basis, the court rendered judgment solely against the union on the first count and awarded compensatory damages of $18 and punitive damages of $300; on the second count it rendered judgment solely against Ciccolallo and awarded compensatory damages of $1650 and punitive damages of $500. Both of these defendants have appealed.

The assignments of error attacking the finding are not pursued in the brief and are therefore treated as abandoned. Salgreen Realty Co. v. Ives, 149 Conn. 208, 211, 177 A.2d 673. The defendants claim that the plaintiff could not recover from the union because, as a member of a voluntary association, he had no common-law right of action against it; that § 52-76 of the General Statutes, which permits a voluntary association to be sued in its distinguishing name, creates no substantive right in the plaintiff; that the plaintiff has not satisfied the burden of proof required under § 31-114, relating to the liability of persons or organizations participating in a labor dispute; and that Ciccolallo could not be held liable under the second count because no conspiracy as claimed in that count was established and because he had been absolved of liability under the first count.

The material facts as found by the court are as follows: The union was the collective bargaining agent for about 400 production and maintenance employees of the Whitney Blake Company. The plaintiff was a member of the union and a maintenance machinist employed by the company. On September 30, 1958, the union called a strike against the company as a result of a labor dispute over the terms and conditions of a new collective bargaining agreement between the union and the company. On October 1, 1958, the union established picket lines in front of entrances to the company's premises and maintained the lines until the middle of November. During this period, the union, through its agents, including Kaplan, its international organizer, maintained, controlled and supervised the pickets and picket lines. The plaintiff did not participate in the strike, and on October 1, 2 and 3 he reported for work and entered the plant through the employees' entrance. On the following Monday, October 6, he arrived at the plant for work and found between fifty and sixty pickets, including Kaplan and Ciccolallo, at the employees' entrance. When the plaintiff arrived, Kaplan threw himself against the pickets and mockingly shouted: 'Let me in, I want to go to work.' Unidentified pickets thereupon shouted the plaintiff's name and told him go home. The picket line was moving in a compact circle. The plaintiff was unable to break through the line, and when he attempted to enter the plant, Kaplan, Ciccolallo and the other pickets, standing row on row, blocked his entrance and pushed him back. After about three-quarters of an hour, the plaintiff abandoned his efforts to enter and left to go to a nearby telephone. He was followed by Ciccolallo and about five other pickets who prevented him from using three public telephones. The plaintiff finally succeeded in making a telephone call at an automobile service station about two blocks from the plant and then started to return to his car. As he passed one of the telephone booths which the pickets had earlier prevented him from using, Ciccolallo came out of the booth, grabbed him, called him vile names, threatened him, threw him forcibly and violently against the wall of a nearby building, struck him and kicked him in the spine. The plaintiff did not go to work again until October 30 when, although prevented from entering the plant through the employees' entrance because of the picket line, he succeeded in gaining access through the office entrance by going around the picket line there.

The finding does not disclose the extent of the loss sustained by the plaintiff as a result of his being unable to enter his employer's plant for work on October 6. Nor does it set forth the nature of the injury sustained by the plaintiff as a result of the assault and battery committed by Ciccolallo. The extent of the finding is that the conduct of the picket line in the of the employees' entrance to the plant was a substantial factor in depriving the plaintiff of work in the plant on October 6 and that, since the conduct was wilful, he is entitled to punitive damages; and that Ciccolallo is liable to him 'for damages sustained by reason of * * * [Ciccolallo's] assault.' The appeal, however, raises no issue as to the amount of the damages awarded against either of the defendants, apart from the claim of the union that it was not liable for punitive damages.

We consider first the issues raised concerning the judgment against the union. At common law, a voluntary unincorporated association like this union could sue or be sued only in the names of its members. United Mine Workers of America v. Coronado Coal Co., 259 U.S. 344, 385, 42 S.Ct. 570, 66 L.Ed. 975; note, 27 A.L.R. 786; see Huth v. Humboldt Stamm, 61 Conn. 227, 23 A. 1084. That disability was removed by statute in this state, however, in 1893. Chapter 32 of the 1893 Public Acts, the progenitor of § 52-76 of the General Statutes, allowed such an association to sue or be sued in its distinguishing name. The statute, however, is procedural and creates no substantive right, so that resort must be had to extraneous circumstances to determine in a given case whether a right of action against the association exists on behalf of one of its members. In the field of torts, the fundamental concept of a voluntary unincorporated association has, in general, militated against the liability of the association to one of its members on the ground of negligence. De Villars v. Hessler, 363 Pa. 498, 500, 70 A.2d 333; note, 14 A.L.R.2d 473. At least one jurisdiction has, however, allowed such an action. Marshall v. International Longshoremen's & Warehousemen's Union, 57 Cal.2d 781, 787, 22 Cal.Rptr. 211, 371 P.2d 987. On the other hand, the reasons for denying a cause of action in negligence have not been found to exist in the field of intentional torts, and consequently a member of a labor union organized as a voluntary unincorporated association has been held to have a right of action against the union for such intentional acts as wrongful expulsion; Intermational Ass'n of Machinists v. Gonzales, 356 U.S. 617, 78 S.Ct. 923, 2 L.Ed.2d 1018, rehearing denied, 357 U.S. 944, 78 S.Ct. 1379, 2 L.Ed.2d 1559; assault and battery; Inglis v. Operating Engineers Local Union No. 12, Cal.App., 18 Cal.Rptr. 187, aff'd, 58 Cal.2d 272, 23 Cal.Rptr. 403, 373 P.2d 467; and wrongful deprivation of the right to work. United Ass'n of Journeymen, etc. v. Borden, 160 Tex. 203, 328 S.W.2d 739.

Since, however, the acts of...