Christian v. International Ass'n of Machinists

• Decision Date: 01 April 1925
• Docket Number: No. 3427.,3427.
• Citation: 7 F.2d 481
• Parties: CHRISTIAN v. INTERNATIONAL ASS'N OF MACHINISTS et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Kentucky

7 F.2d 481 (1925)

CHRISTIAN v. INTERNATIONAL ASS'N OF MACHINISTS et al.

No. 3427.

District Court, E. D. Kentucky.

April 1, 1925.

Omer C. Stubbs and S. D. Rouse, both of Covington, Ky., for plaintiff.

Myers & Howard, of Covington, Ky., and Mulholland & Hartmann, of Toledo, Ohio, for defendants.

ANDREW M. J. COCHRAN, Circuit Judge.

This cause is before me on motions to quash service of process. It is an action to recover damages under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act (Comp. St. §§ 8820-8823, 8827-8830). There are eight defendants. Each of the defendants is an international labor union, except the System Federation No. 41 of the Railway Employees' Department, American Federation of Labor, Chesapeake & Ohio Lines, which is a subordinate of the defendant Railway Employees' Department of the American Federation of Labor, and confined to the lines of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway Company. The plaintiff was a passenger car foreman in the employ of that company in the summer of 1922, and the allegation is that he lost that position by reason of a conspiracy in restraint of interstate trade and commerce, involving a strike to which all of the defendants, at least all except the defendant System Federation No. 41, were parties. It is to recover the damages thereby sustained that this action is brought.

The suability of the defendants is settled by the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of United Mine Workers of America v. Coronado Coal Co., 259 U. S. 344, 42 S. Ct. 570, 66 L. Ed. 975, 27 A. L. R. 762. The question here is as to whether the defendants are before the court by proper service of process. According to the return of the marshal on the summons, service was had on each of the defendants, except the Railway Employees' Department and the System Federation No. 41, by delivering a copy thereof to a certain individual described as "its local chairman and a member"; on the Railway Employees' Department on a certain individual described as "its agent"; and on the System Federation No. 41 on the individual last referred to, described as its president. By the words "its local chairman" was meant chairman of a local union in Kenton county, in this district. It is claimed on behalf of defendants that these individuals, described as members, were really not members of the International Union. They were members only of the local union; the membership of the International Union being made up of its local unions. But I will dispose of the motions on the basis that the members of the local unions are also in fact members of the International Union.

It seems to me clear that the motions of these six defendants will have to be sustained. An individual member of an international union, assuming that individuals are members thereof, is not a representative of such union. He is no more its representative than a stockholder in a corporation is a representative thereof. As a corporation cannot be brought before the court by service of process on one of its stockholders, so a labor union, international or local, cannot be brought before the court by service of process on one of its individual members. An individual member of a union, international or local, cannot be subjected to a personal judgment by service of process on another such individual. A statute providing that he could would be unconstitutional. Flexner v. Farson, 248 U. S. 289, 39 S. Ct. 97, 63 L. Ed. 250. It would seem to be equally true that the suable entity, consisting of himself and the other members of the union, cannot be subjected thereto upon such service of process.

So, also, it must be held that the chairman or any other officer of a local union is not a representative of the International Union for service of process. There is no more reason for holding that he is than that a mere member of such union is. As to some of the defendants the individual on whom process was served sustained no official relation to a local union. It would have made no difference if he did. The following decisions relied on by defendants are more or less in point: Simpson v. Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, 83 W. Va. 355, 98 S. E. 580; State ex rel. Estes v. Staed, 64 Mo. App. 28; Baskins v. United Mine Workers of America, 150 Ark. 398, 234 S. W. 464; Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers v. Green, 206 Ala. 196, 89 So. 435. It should be noted that in the Coronado Case the Supreme Court, through Chief Justice Taft, said: "For these reasons, we conclude that the International Union, the District No. 21, and the 27 local unions were properly made parties defendant here, and properly served by process on...