BROTHERHOOD OF RAILROAD TRAIN v. Central of Ga. Ry. Co.

• Decision Date: 02 April 1956
• Docket Number: No. 15671.,15671.
• Parties: BROTHERHOOD OF RAILROAD TRAINMEN, LOCAL LODGE NO. 721, et al., Appellants, v. CENTRAL OF GEORGIA RAILWAY COMPANY, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

229 F.2d 901 (1956)

BROTHERHOOD OF RAILROAD TRAINMEN, LOCAL LODGE NO. 721, et al., Appellants, v. CENTRAL OF GEORGIA RAILWAY COMPANY, Appellee.

No. 15671.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

February 10, 1956.

Rehearing Denied April 2, 1956.

Benning M. Grice, Macon, Ga., Wayland K. Sullivan, Asst. Gen. Counsel Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, Cleveland, Ohio, for appellant.

John B. Miller, Savannah, Ga., for appellee.

Before HUTCHESON, Chief Judge, and BORAH and BROWN, Circuit Judges.

HUTCHESON, Chief Judge.

Brought by their employer in the midst of a labor dispute, against the named defendants and the class of employees represented by them, the suit was for: (1) a temporary injunction restraining them pendente lite, from endeavoring by self help to effect a modification or change of an arbitration award known as the Cheney Award and from calling and putting into effect a strike because of plaintiff's refusal to acquiesce in their demands; (2) a judgment declaring the award final and binding and not subject to modification and change; and (3) a final order making the injunction permanent.

The claim was: that, though in compliance with the decision of the Supreme Court of Georgia,¹ that it should do so, and pursuant to the Railway Labor Act, 45 U.S.C.A. § 151 et seq., plaintiff had submitted the controversy between it and the defendants over the Cheney Award to the National Railroad Adjustment Board, the defendants had demanded that a modification of the award be negotiated and had given formal notice that a strike of the employees was being set subject to a satisfactory settlement; that the strike date was once postponed at the intervention of the National Mediation Board, but the mediator had advised plaintiff that his services were fruitless; that the defendants will not agree to leave the matter in status quo pending a decision of the controversy by the National Adjustment Board, and have called a system wide strike against plaintiff to coerce it to adopt defendants' interpretation of the award; and that if the strike becomes effective it will completely close down plaintiff's operations with resulting irreparable injury.

The defendants filed a motion to dismiss² for want of jurisdiction on the ground, among others, that the petition shows on its face that plaintiff is seeking an injunction in the face of, and contrary to, the Norris-LaGuardia Act, Secs. 101-115, Title 29.

This motion denied and a hearing had, the district judge concluding: that the Norris-LaGuardia Act was not intended by Congress to deprive a district court of jurisdiction to prevent irreparable injury by maintaining the status quo in respect to a controversy which is pending before the National Adjustment Board; and that it was necessary to preserve the status of the controversy now before the Board; granted the preliminary injunction as prayed, enjoining defendants from striking, work stoppage, picketing, or any similar device.

Appealing from the order denying its motion to dismiss, for want of jurisdiction, and the order granting the injunction, appellants, presenting four questions³ for our decision, thus summarize their principal argument for reversal:

"In both the overruling of the motion to dismiss the carrier\'s complaint and in issuing the temporary injunction against the Brotherhood defendants, the trial court violated the Norris-LaGuardia Act. These violations were numerous, repeated and substantial. Duty and candor compel us to say they were also flagrant. Any one of those violations controls and should alone decide the case. Therefore, we shall treat this feature first, before taking up the additional reasons for reversal."

"The policy of the Act as set forth in Section 102 prevades all of its provisions. It was passed primarily to protect labor, not management. By doing so, it was hoped that all industry, labor and management, would be benefited ultimately and thus that the Act would be in the public interest."

We agree with the appellants that this is so. In the Carter case, Carter v. Herrin Motor Freight Lines, 5 Cir., 131 F.2d 557, 560, where the suit was for an injunction, the court upheld the injunction as to those acts which dealt with such violations as trespassing, injuring property, intimidating, or threatening customers, molesting, assaulting, or intimidating employees, but reversed the injunction in respect of all matters which could be construed as prohibiting acts which the statute allows. Saying:

"The language of the act is too plain and the decisions construing it too clear cut and positive to admit of any doubt that the purpose and effect of the act, as a whole, was to give expression to, and make effective, the policy which breathes throughout it. This policy is that labor disputes, as such, with the assembling, the picketing, the persuasion, the stopping of work, the enlisting of sympathy and support, and all the other acts expressly enumerated in Sec. 104, were no longer to be the subject of injunctive action but were, and were expressly recognized to be, legitimate means for advancing the interests of the working man, and, therefore, of the people as a whole. In the light of that policy, which can be made fully effective only when there is a recognition on the part of employer and employee alike that labor disputes as such are not at all reprobated but encouraged, and only violence in connection with them is forbidden * * *."

the court went on to hold that the use of injunctions in labor disputes, except for the limited purpose of preventing injury from violence where there was really no adequate remedy at law, was an abuse of legal process.

In the face of the imperative language of the section,⁴ appellee's contention, that the act is not applicable because what was sought to be enjoined was action in breach of a contract embodied in the Cheney Award, is wholly untenable. The same contention has been rejected in case after case holding that the statute requires a contrary ruling.

Nor may appellee find better support for the injunction in its claim that the purpose of the strike and its effect would be to do violence to statutory procedures embodied in the statute for a disposition of controversies by the Railroad Adjustment Board. For, as has been held time and again, the purpose of the strike, whether it is or is not illegal, is not a limitation upon the prohibitions of the statute. Cf. Wilson & Co. v. Birl, 3 Cir., 105 F.2d 948, and East Texas Motor Freight Lines v. International Broth. of Teamsters, 5 Cir., 163 F.2d 10, where this court held that such a contention was an attempt to enlarge Federal Court jurisdiction as limited by the act. Cf. also Milk Wagon Drivers' Union, etc. v. Lake Valley Farm Products, 311 U.S. 91, 61 S.Ct. 122, 85 L.Ed. 63, and 43 C.J.S., Injunctions, § 147, p. 748 and 29 A.L.R.2d 360.

In this view it is not necessary for us to determine whether, as contended by appellees, the strike, if called, would be violative of the Railway Labor Act, upon the theory either that it would violate the contract providing for the Cheney Award, or that it would violate the spirit and purpose of the Labor Act to conduct a strike while the issue which brought it about was pending before the Adjustment Board with jurisdiction to decide it. This is so because the fundamental weakness of appellee's position is that there is no express provision in the Labor Act in any way limiting the scope and operation of the prohibitions of the LaGuardia Act, and the claim of implied repeal because of a necessary conflict between the two acts is not borne out by a consideration of the language of the two acts either apart from or in connection with their legislative history.

It is true that the Railway Labor Act does contemplate that every reasonable effort will be made to maintain agreements and to avoid interruption to commerce, and that it contemplates that disputes be considered, and, if possible, decided expeditiously by negotiation and that if disputes over grievances are not adjusted on the property, they may be referred by both or either of the parties to the Adjustment Board. It is equally true, however, that none of the sections mandatorily provide that disputes must be submitted to the board rather than being handled by the voluntary methods provided for in the same act.

If, as appellee contends, Congress had, shortly after the passage of the Norris-LaGuardia Act, intended to curtail its provisions, limiting the equity jurisdiction of the courts in labor disputes so as to subject strike action to injunction, it is inconceivable, we think, that it would not have expressly so provided. Indeed, in General Committee of Adjustment, etc. v. Missouri-Kansas-Texas R. Co., 320 U.S. 323, 64 S.Ct. 146, 88 L.Ed. 76, the Supreme Court expressly held that the Mediation Board's determination of such a controversy was not justiciable. In the light of that decision, appellee is under a burden too heavy to be borne when it seeks to justify the judicial remedy sought and obtained here by invoking a jurisdiction which the Norris-LaGuardia Act expressly withdraws from the Federal Courts.

In short, all that is for decision on this appeal is whether the Railway Labor Act has expressly or impliedly repealed the provisions of the LaGuardia Act, denying jurisdiction to courts to enjoin strikes or work stoppages. Unless, therefore, it can be found that there has been such repeal, it is wholly unnecessary to determine whether, as appellee claims, the adjustment board has jurisdiction over the dispute or, as appellants claim, it does not have. Equally immaterial is the question whether the issue before the Adjustment Board is the same as that involved in the present case.

Further, appellee's contention, which prevailed with the district judge below and which it presses here, that the suit falls within the language of the LaGuardia Act making an exception to the grant of an injunction in...