Chauffeurs, Teamsters and Helpers Local No. 150, Intern. Broth. of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America v. Superior Court of Sacramento County

• Decision Date: 14 July 1964
• Citation: 39 Cal.Rptr. 590,228 Cal.App.2d 452
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: , 50 Lab.Cas. P 19,184 CHAUFFURS, TEAMSTERS AND HELPERS LOCAL NO. 150, INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS, CHAUFFEURS, WAREHOUSEMEN AND HELPERS OF AMERICA, Petitioner, v. The SUPERIOR COURT of the State of California, COUNTY OF SACRAMENTO, Respondent, Jack W. SELLERS, Virginia Sellers Roper and Gladys Sellers, etc., et al., Real Parties in Interest. Civ. 10837.

Page 590

39 Cal.Rptr. 590

228 Cal.App.2d 452, 50 Lab.Cas. P 19,184

CHAUFFURS, TEAMSTERS AND HELPERS LOCAL NO. 150, INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS, CHAUFFEURS, WAREHOUSEMEN AND HELPERS OF AMERICA, Petitioner, v. The SUPERIOR COURT of the State of California, COUNTY OF SACRAMENTO, Respondent Jack W. SELLERS, Virginia Sellers Roper and Gladys Sellers, etc., et al., Real Parties in Interest.

Civ. 10837.

District Court of Appeal, Third District, California.

July 14, 1964.

Rehearing Denied Aug. 7, 1964.

Hearing Denied Sept. 10, 1964.

LeProhn & LeProhn, Stewart Weinberg, San Francisco, for appellant.

Edwin H. Franzen, Hill, Farrer & Burrill, Los Angeles, for respondent.

SCHOTTKY, Justice.

In this proceeding for a writ of prohibition we are concerned with the question whether, after the National Labor Relations Board has tentatively assumed jurisdiction over union organization efforts, a state court may enjoin a libel which is connected with a union's attempt to organize a plant.

Chauffeurs, Teamsters and Helpers Local No. 150. International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America (the local) began a campaign to organize the employees of the real parties in interest, who may collectively be referred to as 'Coca Cola.'

In the Spring of 1963 the local filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board for the purpose of being certified as the collective bargaining representative of Coca Cola's employees.

In June the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued a complaint against Coca Cola in which it was charged that Coca Cola had committed unfair labor practices within the meaning of the National Labor Relations Act. (29 U.S.C.A. § 151 et seq.) The complaint alleged Coca Cola interfered with the exercise by the employees of their rights as guaranteed by section 7 of the Act. (61 Stat. 140, 29 U.S.C.A. § 157.) This matter was heard in August 1963. Shortly after the hearing the local commenced publicizing the proceedings and the testimony at the hearing on the charges. The publicity took the form of a handbill which was distributed to the public in front of supermarkets which sold Coca Cola and at the California State Fair Grounds. This document, which formed the basis of the libel action, read as follows:

'DON'T BUY COCA COLA

'PROTEST LIE DETECTOR TESTS AND DISCRIMINATORY DISCHARGES

'DEAR CONSUMER:

'These startling facts were brought out at a government hearing on charges filed against Coca Cola Bottling Company of Sacramento:

'Coca Cola refuses to recognize the long established right of laboring people to freely organize and choose collective bargaining representatives.

'Coca Cola created a puppet union for its employees and runs and uses this union for its own purposes. Spies are used to insure that these purposes are carried out. Employees failing to go along are discharged.

'So far this year Coca Cola has fired two employees because they refused to accept the puppet company union and wanted a real union.

'Even worse, new employees are given LIE DETECTOR TESTS to determine their union sympathies and membership; and Coke does not stop here. LIE DETECTOR TESTS are given regular employees. They are questioned about intimate details of their private lives to further embarrass and humiliate them. No rank and file employee at Coke is safe from the LIE DETECTOR.

'It is not a crime to be pro-union; Coca Cola must think so. It treats its employees as criminals. Help convince the Coca Cola Company that you and other modern consumers do not believe in these totalitarian practices.

'PLEASE DON'T BUY COCA COLA!

'Thank you.

'TEAMSTERS, LOCAL 150'

Within a few days, on August 28, 1963, Coca Cola commenced an action in the superior court for libel based on statements appearing in the handbill. On the same day the court issued a temporary restraining order enjoining the local from distributing the handbill. Thereafter, the superior court issued a preliminary injunction preventing the local 'From printing, publishing, circulating and distributing, or causing to be printed, published, circulated or distributed either alone or with other literature or by handing to individuals or by any other means, false and untruthful statements identical to or whose substance is the same as or similar to' those in the handbill set forth above.

In October 1963 Coca Cola sought and NLRB issued a complaint charging the local with unfair labor practices under 'section 8(b), subsection (4)(ii)(B)' of the Act, in that it coerced certain persons to cease selling Coca Cola. Coca Cola studiously excluded any reference to the defamatory item which it had already laid before the state court. Coca Cola itself sought to create a division of authority between state and federal tribunals covering separate manifestations of a single labor dispute.

On November 15, 1963, the United States District Court issued a temporary injunction restraining certain picketing, including any attempt to advertise to the public at the site of certain supermarkets the local's dispute with Coca Cola. (We, of course, are not concerned with the scope of the injunction issued by the federal court. Its breadth though may be too wide.) (See N.L.R.B. v. Fruit & Vegetable Packers, 377 U.S. 58, 84 S.Ct. 1063, 12 L.Ed.2d 129; N.L.R.B. v. Servette, 377 U.S. 46, 84 S.Ct. 1098, 12 L.Ed.2d 121.)

The local filed a demurrer to the libel complaint in the state court. It argued that the subject matter of the complaint was in excess of the jurisdiction of the court because the conduct of the local in publishing and distributing the handbill was an activity arguably within the purview of section 7 or 8 of the National Labor Relations Act.

The question with which we are concerned is whether a state court may enjoin the publication of a libel which arises out of and is connected with a union's attempt to organize and win an NRLB election to represent a company's employees.

In answering this question we may start with the second opinion of the United States Supreme Court in the case of San Diego Building Trades Council, etc. v. Garmon, 359 U.S. 236, 79 S.Ct. 773, 3 L.Ed.2d 775. This requires some discussion. The case began in 1953 when the Garmons, who owned a lumber yard, filed a suit against a local construction union seeking an injunction to prevent picketing and for damages. The activity was arguably an unfair labor practice under the National Labor Relations Act. The union argued unsuccessfully at the trial that it had not committed an unfair labor practice under California law and that the court had no authority to apply federal law. The California Supreme Court (Garmon v. San Diego Bldg. Trades Council, 45 Cal.2d 657, 291 P.2d 1) held in effect that since the acts of the union were an unfair labor practice under the National Labor Relations Act, the activities were not privileged under California law and upheld the decision of the trial court awarding damages and issuing an injunction. The United States Supreme Court in San Diego Building Trades Council v. Garmon, 353 U.S. 26, 77 S.Ct. 607, 1 L.Ed.2d 618, held that the California courts were incompetent to issue the injunction. The injunction was set aside and the case was remanded on the question whether California law permitted the award of damages on the facts. The California Supreme Court then held (Garmon v. San Diego Bldg. Trades Council, 49 Cal.2d 595, 602, 320 P.2d 473) that the picketing was tortious under California law and sustained the damage award. Again, the California decision was overturned. The United States Supreme Court (359 U.S. 236, 79 S.Ct. 773) ruled directly on the question of federal preemption and quoted with approval at pages 242, 243, 79 S.Ct. at page 778, the following language from Garner v. Teamsters C. & H. Local Union, 346 U.S. 485, 490, 491, 74 S.Ct. 161, 98 L.Ed. 228, which discussed the preemption question under the National Labor Relations Act: "Congress did not merely lay down a substantive rule of law to be enforced by any tribunal competent to apply law generally to the parties. It went on to confide primary interpretation and application of its rules to a specific and specially constituted tribunal [NLRB] and prescribed a particular procedure for investigation, complaint and notice, and hearing and decision, including judicial relief pending a final administrative order. Congress evidently considered that centralized administration of specially designed procedures was necessary to obtain uniform application of its substantive rules and to avoid thse diversities and conflicts likely to result from a variety of local procedures and attitudes towards labor controversies. * * * A multiplicity of tribunals and a diversity of procedures are quite as apt to produce incompatible or conflicting adjudications as are different rules of substantive law. * * *"

The court then said in Garmon at pages 244, 245, 79 S.Ct. at pages 779, 780: 'When it is clear or may fairly be assumed that the activities which a State purports to regulate are protected by § 7 of the National Labor Relations Act, or constitute an unfair labor practice under § 8, due regard for the federal enactment requires that state jurisdiction must yield. To leave the States free to regulate conduct so plainly within the central aim of federal regulation involves too great a danger of conflict between power asserted by Congress and requirements imposed by state law. Nor has it mattered whether the States have acted through laws of broad general application rather than laws specifically directed towards the governance of industrial relations. Regardless of the mode adopted, to allow the States to control conduct which is the subject of national regulation would create potential frustration of national purposes.

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'* * * When an activity is arguably subject to § 7 or § 8 of the Act, the States as well as the federal courts must defer to the exclusive...