Curran v. Galen

• Decision Date: 02 March 1897
• Parties: CURRAN v. GALEN et al.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

152 N.Y. 33

46 N.E. 297

CURRAN

v.GALEN et al.

Court of Appeals of New York.

March 2, 1897.

Appeal from supreme court, general term, Fifth department.

Action by Charles Curran against Louis Galen and others. From a judgment of the general term (28 N. Y. Supp. 1134, mem.) affirming a judgment for plaintiff, defendants appeal. Affirmed.

The plaintiff demands damages against the defendants for having confederated and conspired together to injure him by taking away his means of earning a livelihood and preventing him from obtaining employment. He sets out in his complaint that he was an engineer by trade, and that, previously to the acts mentioned, he was earning, by reason of his trade, a large income, and had constant employment at remunerative wages. He acts forth the existence of an unincorporated association in the city of Rochester, where he was a resident, called the Brewery Workingmen's Local Assembly, 1,796, Knights of Labor, which was composed of workingmen employed in the brewing business in that city, and was a branch of a national organization known as the Knights of Labor. He alleges that it assumes to control by its rules and regulations the acts of its members in relation to that trade and employment, and demands and obtains from its members implicit obedience in relation thereto. Plaintiff then alleges in his complaint that the defendants Grossberger and Watts wrongfully and maliciously conspired and combined together, and with the said local assembly, for the purpose of injuring him and taking away his means of earning a livelihood, in the following manner, to wit: That in the month of November, 1890, Grossberger and Watts threatened the plaintiff that unless he would join said local assembly, pay the initiation fee, and subject himself to its rules and regulations, they and that association would obtain plaintiff's discharge from the employment in which he then was, and would make it impossible for him to obtain any employment in the city of Rochester or elsewhere, unless he became a member of said association. In pursuance of that conspiracy, upon plaintiff's refusing to become a member of said association, Grossberger and Watts and the association made complaint to the plaintiff's employers, and forced them to discharge him from their employ, and, by false and malicious reports in regard to him, sought to bring him into ill repute with members of his trade and employers, and to prevent him from prosecuting his trade and earning a livelihood. The answer, in the first place, admitted all that was alleged in respect to the organization of the local assembly, as to how it was composed, and as to its being a branch of the national organization of the Knights of Labor, and as to its assuming to control the acts of its members, and to demand from them implicit obedience. It then denies, generally and specifically, each and every other allegation in the complaint. As a second and separate answer and defense to the complaint, the defendants set up the existence in the city of Rochester of the Ale Brewers' Association, and an agreement between that association and the local assembly described in the complaint, to the effect that all employés of the brewery companies belonging to the Ale Brewers' Association ‘shall be members of the Brewery Workingmen's Local Assembly, 1,796, Knights of Labor, and that no employé should work for a longer period than four weeks without becoming a member.’ They alleged that the plaintiff was retained in the employment of the Miller Brewing Company ‘for more than four weeks after he was notified of the provisions of said agreement, requiring him to become a member of the local assembly’; that defendants requested plaintiff to become a member, and, upon his refusal to comply, ‘Grossberger and Watts, as members of said assembly, and as a committee duly appointed for that purpose, notified the officers of the Miller Brewing Company that plaintiff, after repeated requests, had refused for more than four weeks to become a member of said assembly’; and that ‘defendants did so solely in pursuance of said agreement, and in accordance with the terms thereof, and without intent or purpose to injure plaintiff in any way.’ The plaintiff demurred to the matter set up as a separate defense to the complaint,...