Burlington Transp. Co. v. Hathaway

• Decision Date: 14 December 1943
• Docket Number: 46246.
• Citation: 12 N.W.2d 167,234 Iowa 135
• Parties: BURLINGTON TRANSP. CO. et al. v. HATHAWAY et al.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

12 N.W.2d 167

234 Iowa 135

BURLINGTON TRANSP. CO. et al. v. HATHAWAY et al.

No. 46246.

Supreme Court of Iowa

December 14, 1943

Connolly, O'Malley & McNutt, of Des Moines for appellants.

J C. James and Russell B. James, both of Chicago, Ill., and Clark, Pryor, Hale & Plock, of Burlington, for appellees.

MULRONEY Chief Justice.

Each of the plaintiffs is a common carrier of freight, by means of motor vehicles, operating to and from Burlington, Iowa. Their drivers belong to the defendant Local Union No. 218 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs Warehousemen and Helpers of America, hereinafter called the union. The defendants, Gordon Hathaway and Roy Tweedell are business agents of the union.

John Blaul's Sons Company is a wholesale grocery company located in Burlington whose truck drivers do not belong to the union. The defendant union, in its effort to unionize the Blaul Company, established a picket line around the latter's place of business and instructed plaintiffs' drivers not to handle Blaul merchandise. This latter action was the subject of the injunction suit which resulted in the temporary and permanent injunction enjoining the defendants "from requiring plaintiffs' employees who are members of said union to refrain from handling or delivering merchandise consigned to or from John Blaul's Sons Company." Defendants appeal.

The record shows that Gordon Hathaway called upon the Blaul Company several times and informed them that he was instructed by his union to seek a labor contract with them. When he was finally told that the company would not negotiate with him unless the union represented a majority of the employees, the union placed the Blaul Company on the unfair list of the union, and passed a resolution not to haul or work upon any merchandise of that company. There was evidence that plaintiffs' drivers did refuse to haul Blaul merchandise; that it piled up on plaintiffs' docks; that Blaul continued to offer merchandise to plaintiffs for shipment and plaintiffs' employees refused to handle it; that Tweedell and Hathaway placed signs on the merchandise on the docks bearing the legend that the merchandise was unfair to Local 218; that plaintiffs' employees said they would not handle Blaul merchandise for they were afraid that, if they did, they would be blackballed by the union; that on one occasion Hathaway informed plaintiffs' employees they could handle some of Blaul's perishable merchandise on the docks but they were not to handle any more. There was no evidence of any acts of violence upon the part of defendants.

I. Upon this record one clear reason for the granting of the injunction is readily apparent. The concerted action of the defendants union had for its object an act prohibited by law. The plaintiffs are all common carriers and as such they were bound to carry property tendered by the public for shipment. The rule is thus stated in 13 C.J.S., Carriers, p. 61, § 27: "Both under and apart from statutory provisions to that effect, every common carrier is under a duty to receive for transportation and to transport the property of any person tendered to it for transportation, provided the property is such as it holds itself out as willing to carry, or as it usually carries. ***." See, also, State ex rel. Board of Railroad Commissioners v. Rosenstein et al., 217 Iowa 985, 252 N.W. 251; Cobb, Blasdel & Co. v. Illinois C. R. Co., 38 Iowa 601.

When the plaintiffs obtained their permits to operate as common carriers, they undertook the duty to transport the freight which the public tendered to them for transportation. The failure to carry out this duty to transport would not be excused by showing that its employees refused to obey the employers' orders. See Chicago B. & Q. R. Co. v. Burlington, C. R. & N. Ry. Co. et al., C.C., 34 F. 481, and Consolidated Freight Lines, Inc., et al. v. Department of Public Service et al., 200 Wash. 659, 94 P.2d 484, 485. In the last cited case a strike of laundry workers at the Davenport Hotel in Spokane resulted in a picket line around that hotel. Certain common carrier truck lines, who had been serving the hotel in the capacity of picking up freight or baggage and delivering it anywhere in the State of Washington or in the channels of interstate commerce, refused to send their trucks through the picket line at the hotel because the local manager of the teamsters' union threatened to call a strike of the carriers' drivers if they were permitted to go through the picket line. The hotel filed a complaint with the Department of Public Service against the carriers for the cancellation of their permits as common carriers. This resulted in an order suspending temporarily the permits under which the carriers operated. Upon appeal the action of the Commission was affirmed, the Supreme Court of Washington stating: "The question then arises whether the appellants were excused by reason of the law. They being common carriers, it was their duty, under the facts and circumstances of this case, to send their trucks through the picket line. 13 C.J.S., Carriers, p. 407, § 202; Moore on Carriers, 2d ed., Vol. 1, p. 124; Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co. v. Burlington, C. R. & N. Ry. Co., C.C., 34 F. 481; Burgess Bros. Co. v. Stewart, 112 Misc. 347, 184 N.Y.S. 199."

For authorities holding a shipper is entitled to a mandatory injunction to compel the carrier to transport his goods when the carrier's excuse is that his employees have been ordered by their union not to handle the shipper's goods, see Buyer v. Guillan, 2 Cir., 271 F. 65, 16 A.L.R. 216; Note, 6 A.L.R. 909; 31 Am.J. 1000, sec. 399.

Section 8044 Code of 1939 provides: "It shall be unlawful for any common carrier to *** entail any prejudice or disadvantage upon any particular person, company, firm, corporation, *** by any *** practice whatsoever ***."

Section 13251 Code of 1939 provides: "All persons within this state shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the accommodations, advantages, facilities, and privileges of *** public conveyances ***." And section 13252 makes the denial of the rights guaranteed by section 13251 punishable by fine and imprisonment.

From the above it is clear that if the...