Commonwealth v. Haffer

• Decision Date: 04 April 1932
• Citation: 279 Mass. 73,180 N.E. 615
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH v. HAFFER.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

279 Mass. 73

180 N.E. 615

COMMONWEALTH

v.HAFFER.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

April 4, 1932.

Exceptions from Superior Court, Suffolk County; Harold P. Williams, Judge.

Herbert Haffer was convicted in the Boston municipal court of a violation of the city ordinance to prohibit carrying and displaying placards without permit. To the rulings of the superior court sustaining the conviction, defendant excepted,

Exceptions overruled.

D. Lasker, Asst. Dist. Atty., of Boston, for the Commonwealth.

H. Wise, of Boston, for defendant.

CROSBY, J.

The defendant was convicted in the municipal court of the city of Boston of a violation of chapter 39, § 37, of the Revised Ordinances of 1925 of the city of Boston, which reads in part as follows: ‘No person shall, while on foot in any street, carry and display and showcard, placard, or sign, except in accordance with a permit from the commissioner of public works.’ From this conviction the defendant appealed to the superior court and the case was heard by a judge of that court without a jury, the defendant having in writing waived and filed such waiver of his constitutional right to a trial by a jury.

The case was submitted to the court upon a statement of agreed facts as follows: ‘The defendant is the business agent and executive officer of the Boston Neckwear Workers Union, Local No. 15200, a Labor Union whose membership is composed of persons engaged as workers in the manufacture of men's neckwear and affiliated with the American Federation of Labor. The defendant is not employed by the Elite Neckwear Company. Certain members of the Boston Neckwear Workers Union who were in the employ of the Elite Neckwear Company, a neckwear manufacturing concern with a place of business at 106 Essex Street, Boston, went on strike in order to prevent a threatened reduction in wages. In the conduct of the strike some of the members of the Union, among whom were employees of the Elite Neckwear Company, were deputized to patrol in front of the entrance of the building on the fifth floor in which the Elite Neckwear Company had its place of business, for the purpose of ascertaining who were employed by the Elite Neckwear Company. These persons, usually four in number, walked in Indian file along the curbstone, which is about ten feet away from the doorway entrance to the above mentioned building, namely 106 Essex Street. On the twenty-second day of September, 1931, at or about 8:30 a. m., the defendant patrolled on foot in front of the entrance of the building of the Elite Neckwear Company, displaying and carrying a cloth sign attached to his vest, across the upper part of his chest, the dimensions of which were about twenty inches in length and six inches in width, on which cloth in blue print appeared the following printed words, ‘Elite Neckwear on Strike.’ These prined words in their ensemble measured approximately six inches in height and eight inches in width. A complaint was issued against the defendant for violating chapter 39, section 37, of the Revised Ordinances of the City of Boston. The defendant was tried in the Boston Municipal Court on the twenty-third day of September and was found guilty and sentenced to pay a fine of five dollars, from which the defendant appealed.'

The defendant filed a motion requesting the judge to rule as matter of law that the defendant was not guilty upon the statement of agreed facts; this motion was denied subject to the defendant's exception. He also excepted to the refusal of the judge to make certain requested rulings. The judge found the defendant guilty on the complaint, to which finding the defendant excepted.

It cannot be doubted that the cloth with the printing thereon carried and displayed by the defendant was a placard or sign within the meaning of the...