O'Brien v. United States
| Decision Date | 05 June 1923 |
| Docket Number | 3768. |
| Parties | O'BRIEN et al. v. UNITED STATES. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit |
O. M Rogers, of Covington, Ky., and A. C. Hall, of Newport, Ky for plaintiffs in error.
Sawyer A. Smith, U.S. Atty., of Covington, Ky. (John E. Shepard and Rodney G. Bryson, Asst. U.S. Attys., all of Covington, Ky on the brief), for the United States.
Before KNAPPEN, DENISON, and DONAHUE, Circuit Judges.
While a strike was in progress at the rolling mills in Newport, Ky just across the river from Cincinnati, the mills management arranged to sell a steel billet to a Cincinnati manufacturer. The purchaser was to take delivery at the mills, and accordingly sent over from Cincinnati an automobile truck the driver of which was instructed to get the billet and bring it across the river into Ohio. After he had received it at the mills, loaded it on his truck and started back, he was accosted by the four plaintiffs in error, and as a result of the conversation he turned back to the mills, unloaded the billet, and went back to Cincinnati with his empty truck. The plaintiffs in error were indicted for having conspired to restrain and obstruct interstate commerce in violation of the Sherman Act (Comp. St. Secs. 8820-8823, 8827-8830). It was the theory of the prosecution that the respondents were, in effect, strike pickets, and that by threats and intimidation they compelled the truck driver to abandon the enterprise.
The point chiefly urged in support of reversal is that the effect of the Clayton Act (38 Stat. 730) is to exempt from the prohibitions of the Sherman Act any conspiracy which is merely in aid of a strike, and the overt acts in connection with which are only those things which are permitted to strikers by the express terms of the Clayton Act. It is quite unnecessary to decide this question. The trial judge expressed his belief that the Clayton Act did not have this effect; but in view of the specific language of the indictment, and for the purpose of the charge to the jury, he accepted the respondents' contention, and instructed that there could be no conviction unless the jury was convinced that there was such conduct by respondents and such a show of force as amounted to intimidation, rather than merely to 'peaceful persuasion.' The jury's necessarily implied finding that the respondents' conduct amounted to intimidation by threats of force is not without...
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