Clarkson v. Laiblan
| Decision Date | 02 December 1913 |
| Citation | 161 S.W. 660,178 Mo.App. 708 |
| Parties | JAMES L. CLARKSON, Respondent, v. FREDERICK LAIBLAN et al., Appellants |
| Court | Missouri Court of Appeals |
Appeal from St. Louis City Circuit Court.--Hon. Eugene McQuillin Judge.
AFFIRMED.
Judgment affirmed.
T. J Rowe, Thos. J. Rowe, Jr., and Henry Rowe for appellants.
(1) There is no evidence in this case upon which to bottom the decree entered herein. (2) The members of a voluntary association are not liable for the wrongful acts of the agents of such association unless they directed, participated in or approved of such wrongful acts. Mere membership in a voluntary association is not sufficient to make a member liable for the wrongful acts of the agents of such association. (3) Patrick Garvey, either as an individual or as a business agent of Local Union No. 1, was not guilty of any wrongful act or illegal act as against the plaintiff and the evidence in this case fails entirely to make a prima-facie case upon which an injunction should issue.
Albert E. Hausman for respondent.
(1) The injunction was properly granted in this case because the defendants were unlawfully interfering with plaintiff's right to work for whomsoever would employ him, and with his right to contract with whomsoever would contract with him. Lohse Pat. Door Co. v. Fuelle, 215 Mo. 421; Erdman v. Mitchell, 63 L. R. A. 534; Plant v Woods, 176 Mass. 492; Swaine v. Blackmore, 75 Mo.App. 78; O'Brien v. People ex rel., 216 Ill. 354; Giblan v. National Amalgamated Union, 2 K. B. 600; Beck v. Teamsters' Union, 118 Mich. 497; Purvis v. United Brotherhood, 214 Pa. 348; Blackmore v. Swaine, 75 Mo.App. 78. (2) A conspiracy to deprive nonunion men of employment and compel their discharge is illegal. Beck v. Teamsters' Union, 118 Mich. 497; Erdman v. Mitchell, 207 Pa. 79; Purvis v. United Brotherhood, 214 Pa. 348; Brennan v. United Hatters, 73 N.J. L. 729; Glass Co. v. Blowers' Ass'n, 66 A. 953.
This is a suit in equity for injunctive relief. The finding and decree were for plaintiff and defendants prosecute the appeal.
Plaintiff is a journeyman roofer by occupation, and defendants are the business agent and officers of an unincorporated organization known as Local Union No. 1 of the International Brotherhood of Composition Roofers, Damp and Waterproof Workers, of St. Louis, Missouri. This organization, of which defendants are members, is affiliated with a central organization known as the Building Trades Council in the city of St. Louis. At the time complained of, defendant Frederick Laiblan, or Laibly, was president of Local Union No. 1, while defendant Eugene Moriarity was vice-president thereof, and defendant Michael McCarthy was recording secretary, and Michael Shannon its financial secretary, Edward J. McCarthy its treasurer, William Holstein its doorkeeper, and defendant Patrick F. Garvey its business agent. The several other defendants named in the bill were members of the executive committee of such local union. These defendants were all members of the voluntary association known as Local Union No. 1, and, as before said, were, through it, affiliated with the Central Building Trades Council. All of the building trades, save the brick layers of the city of St. Louis, were affiliated together in the Building Trades Council, but Local Union No. 1, of which these defendants are members, was constituted solely through the co-operation and affiliation of members engaged in the occupation of journeymen composition roofers.
It appears that plaintiff had been a member of Local Union No. 1 from 1903 to 1906; that then he was a journeyman water proof roofer and eligible to membership therein. In 1906 he embarked in the roofing business on his own behalf and became an employer of journeymen roofers, which, under the rules of the union, ipso facto terminated his membership therein. While thus engaged as a contracting roofer, plaintiff employed only members of Local Union No. 1 and complied with all of its rules. In the latter part of January, 1909, plaintiff sold out his business to the St. Louis Roofing Company and was employed by the general manager of that concern as a roofer. He worked one day for that company and was laid off. Thereupon Mr. Holland, the manager of St. Louis Roofing Company, sent word from his office to the shop foreman that plaintiff should be placed in charge of a gang of men as foreman at sixty cents per hour. On the morning of February 21, 1909, plaintiff appeared at the shop of the St. Louis Roofing Company and reported for work to the foreman. Defendant Patrick F. Garvey, business agent for Local Union No. 1, was at the shop of the St. Louis Roofing Company at the time, as was his custom, for it is said he was present there every morning to see that no nonunion workmen were given work in preference to those who were members of the union. The foreman of the St. Louis Roofing Company handed a yellow slip of paper to plaintiff, indicating his position as foreman of a gang of roofers to which he had been assigned by Mr. Holland, the general manager. When defendant Garvey, business agent of the union, saw plaintiff in possession of the yellow slip, he inquired of Haley, the shop foreman, whether or not all of the other men there in attendance were to be given work that morning and Haley replied in the negative. Thereupon, Garvey said to Haley: "This man (meaning plaintiff) don't go to work either then." In obedience to Garvey's command, Haley took from plaintiff his yellow slip of paper and dispensed with his services as foreman. Plaintiff and Garvey then entered into a conversation about plaintiff joining the union. On the following night plaintiff applied to Local Union No. 1 for membership therein and was present in the anteroom waiting action on his application. All of the defendants here were at that meeting, unless it be Hurley, and it appears they considered plaintiff's application for membership, but deferred action thereon. Soon thereafter plaintiff submitted another application, but it is said it was rejected, and plaintiff was advised by defendant Garvey that this was because he had applied to the office through Mr. Holland for work instead of coming to the shop where Garvey was stationed.
Thereafter on March 16, 1909, plaintiff entered into a contract with St. Louis Roofing Company to roof a building to be occupied by the Rohan Boiler Works and fourteen houses in Parkview. He entered upon this work as subcontractor, and on March 20, just as he was completing the task of roofing the building to be occupied by the Rohan Boiler Works, defendant Garvey called upon him there and inquired what plaintiff was doing. Plaintiff informed Garvey he was roofing the building as subcontractor for the St. Louis Roofing Company, whereupon Garvey said to plaintiff, "You know we ain't going to let you do that." And plaintiff said in reply, "I don't see why, I telephoned for men and you wouldn't send them to me and I couldn't leave the job go." To this Garvey replied, "Well, if they (St. Louis Roofing Company) give you any more work Monday morning, I will call every man away from the St. Louis Roofing Company." It is in evidence that the St. Louis Roofing Company employed at the time from seventy-five to one hundred union men, who were members of Local Union No. 1, of which Garvey was the business agent. This conversation between Garvey and plaintiff occurred on Saturday afternoon, and immediately thereafter Garvey called Mr. Holland, manager of the St. Louis Roofing Company, over the telephone and made an appointment stating, according to the evidence of Mr. Holland, "that there was trouble on account of Mr. Clarkson subcontracting, and that if we didn't change the arrangement, that he would pull all the men off or there would be a strike of one hundred men Monday morning, something to that effect." Mr. Holland continued, "He (Garvey) came up to the office about five o'clock, I guess it was, and we talked the matter over and decided that we wouldn't subcontract to Mr. Clarkson (the plaintiff.)" Holland says that, while he could not state the precise conversation between him and Garvey, Garvey said, in effect, that a strike would be declared if he continued his contracts with plaintiff. Because of this threat Mr. Holland, for the St. Louis Roofing Company, called off and canceled the contracts with plaintiff for the roofing of the fourteen houses in Parkview, and plaintiff was therefore unemployed for a considerable time. The evidence of Holland, manager of the St. Louis Roofing Company, is that that company had in its employ from seventy-five to one hundred union men, members of Local Union No. 1, at the time, and that its business was pressing; that the contracts with plaintiff were called off and its business relations with him terminated, because he knew Garvey was the business agent of the union and was in a position to entail loss upon the St. Louis Roofing Company if the demand were not complied...
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