Carroll v. Chesapeake & O. Coal Agency Co.

• Decision Date: 17 July 1903
• Docket Number: 486.
• Parties: CARROLL et all v. CHESAPEAKE & O. COAL AGENCY CO.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

124 F. 305

CARROLL et all v. CHESAPEAKE & O. COAL AGENCY CO.

No. 486.

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

July 17, 1903

Charles E. Hogg (S.C. Burdette, on the brief), for appellants.

J. W St. Clair and W. E. Chilton, for appellee.

Appeal from the Circuit Court of the United States for the Southern District of West Virginia, at Charleston.

See 119 F. 942.

This case comes up on appeal from the Circuit Court of the United States for the Southern District of West Virginia. The appeal is from a motion refusing to dissolve an injunction. The bill was filed by the Chesapeake & Ohio Coal Agency Company, a corporation of the state of New Jersey, against a number of corporations of the state of West Virginia, hereinafter spoken of as the 'coal companies,' and the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad Company, a corporation both of Virginia and West Virginia, and also against a large number of persons, citizens and residents of the State of West Virginia, hereinafter spoken of as the 'individual defendants.' Also against W. P. Rend, a citizen of Illinois; against all the copartners in the Blume Coal Company, citizens and residents of West Virginia; G. W Purcell and W. B. Wilson, citizens and residents of the state of Indiana; and John Mitchell, a citizen and resident of the state of Pennsylvania. The defendant Rend and the copartners in the Blume Coal Company are included in the term 'coal companies,' defendants. To this bill the individual defendants interposed demurrers; Purcell, Wilson, and John Mitchell claiming was allowed, the demurrer was sustained on this ground, and they were dismissed from the suit. All the other individual defendants filed a joint demurrer to the bill. The grounds of demurrer will be stated hereafter.

In order to understand the grounds of the demurrer, an inspection and statement of the allegations of the bill, or at least an abstract of the allegations, is necessary. The bill proceeds at great length. The complainant is now, and for many years last past has been, engaged in the business of selling coal and coke. A business starting from small beginning, but which now has assumed enormous proportion amounting in the last coal year to 3,000,000 tons of coal and many hundreds of thousands of coke per annum. Its business is selling coal and coke mined and manufactured by the coal companies defendant. It has been so engaged from the development of these mines in all foreign and American business outside of the capes, and it is almost the exclusive agent in the sale of all coal sold inside the capes east of the mines. It confines its business to the selling of coal and coke mined and manufactured by the defendant companies. At great expense it has built up the business, and sells to consumers all over the world; its business being worth to-day not less than $50,000 per annum. That the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad Company owns the only means of communicating with the mines of the said companies, and is the only mode by which their products can be carried to market. That their mines are situated in what is known as the 'New River Coal Field,' located in the New River gorge or canon, known as the 'new River Coal Measures,' the coal from which produces a very valuable and high grade of coke, and the coal from said mines is of the highest class steam coal known in the world, and so commands a market in not only this country, but in many European and South American countries. That it has contracts with all of the said coal companies, whereby it sells all the products of their mines and ovens at a price named by the owners of the mines, and becomes responsible to each of them for all deliveries made by each of them, respectively, on board the railway cars at the mines; paying for said coal and coke when so loaded upon the cars, whether sold or not, for a commission of 10 cents per ton. That the said coal companies are not required to deliver to it coal and coke when the employes in their mines are on a strike, or refuse to work. That, in order to sell coal and coke in large quantities, it is necessary to make contracts for deliveries reaching over the whole coal year, which in the eastern market begins on the 1st of April, and in the western market begins on the 1st of May. That it has already sold more than 2,000,000 tons of coal and several hundred thousand tons of coke, to be delivered during the present coal year; a part of this to the government of the United States for the navy, and a large quantity to foreign steamships, and railways and industrial institutions. To fill these contracts it must provide for the transportation of the coal and coke contracted for. For failing to fulfill contracts, for causes hereafter stated, it has already sustained a loss of at least $50,000, and is threatened with greater losses. That, owing to the superior quality of the New River coal, it cannot substitute other coal in its place, except at enormous cost. That, in addition to its present and future losses upon its contracts, it is threatened with the entire loss of its business, which will be hopelessly destroyed, and in this way it would incur irreparable damage. That since 7th of June, 1902, it has been unable to procure but a small amount of coal and coke, because very many, if not all, the employes of the coal companies have quit work, and all these mines, except one, have been idle since that time. The expected mine has had its tonnage greatly reduced. If these coal companies had not been thus interrupted, their whole products coming to complainant would have secured it in the fulfillment of all of its contracts.

The bill then at great length and detail charges: That this cessation of work is due to a secret unincorporated association known as the 'United Mine Workers of America.' That the purpose of this association is the combination of all the mine workers in America, with a view of controlling the labor in the mines. That to this end the country is divided into districts, the territory covering the states of Virginia and West Virginia being known as 'District No. 17.' That this district is divided into subdistricts, or locals, which have been organized at the mines of every one of the defendant coal companies. That under the orders of the central organization, communicated to all their subdistricts or locals, the miners engaged in the mines of all the defendant coal companies went on a strike and quit work. Up to that time the miners and mine laborers in the services of these coal companies had been in the enjoyment of wages equal to or greater than that paid in any other coal fields in the United States, the same having been advanced from time to time as the market justified. They were getting good work, making good wages, and were happy and prosperous, and neither of them, individually or with any number of their fellows, complained to their employers on account of their compensation or the conditions and environments surrounding their employment. Not content with this, and as a part of the scheme and method of the organization, the subordinate officers, acting in collusion with the national officers of the organization, besides ordering the strike, they and the miners and mine laborers, members of the subordinate locals, used every effort by persuasion, force, and in many instances by intimidation and threats, to induce others to join with them in the strike. That these miners and mine laborers who have refused to work are now engaged in preventing others from working, and are materially supported and encouraged by their leaders. The complaint goes on as follows:

'Eighteen. Complainant avers that there are a large number of persons who are willing to work for said defendant coal companies, and who quit work through fear, if they could do so, and be safe and secure against molestation and personal injury from said individual defendants and their confederates, members of said United Mine Workers of America, and that said defendant coal companies can employ and bring from other sections of the country an adequate number of persons to mine and ship their coal and manufacture and ship their coke, if they were assured that they would not be molested or personally injured by the said defendants and their said confederates, members of said organization; but the said individual defendants, members of said organization, and their confederates, also members of said organization, residing in the said New River coal fields, have combined and confederated together for the purpose of preventing all such persons from working in the said mines by the performance of such acts as will operate to accomplish this purpose, even to the extent of doing personal violence, and that the said individual defendants, together with their confederates aforesaid, have inaugurated and been carrying on a system of marching from one colliery to another of the said defendant companies in large bodies, making threatening speeches, and carrying on that sort of tumultuous gatherings and acting in such a menacing manner that they have terrorized and intimidated all persons living in said New River coal field, and who want to work, and all such persons as have been brought into said field by said defendant coal companies from other sections of the country have been scared and put in fear by reason of such conduct, and thereby prevented from working for said coal companies defendant. That they are moving about over said field in the nighttime and daytime in bodies from 200 to 500, gathering together at some places as many as 1,500 persons, using that sort of language, making that sort of demonstrations, and using language so violent that they have placed the whole country in terror, and that there is now throughout that coal field, particularly in the

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