David Adler & Sons Co. v. Maglio

• Decision Date: 03 December 1929
• Citation: 228 N.W. 123,200 Wis. 153
• Court: Wisconsin Supreme Court
• Parties: DAVID ADLER & SONS CO. v. MAGLIO ET AL.

200 Wis. 153

228 N.W. 123

DAVID ADLER & SONS CO.

v.MAGLIO ET AL.

Supreme Court of Wisconsin.

Dec. 3, 1929.

Appeal from a judgment of the Circuit Court for Milwaukee County; Gustave G. Gehrz, Circuit Judge.

Reversed.

See, also, 223 N. W. 89.

Labor controversy. Action in equity, begun by David Adler & Sons Company May 25, 1928, against the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, Barney Maglio, and other members of the clothing workers' unions. Both parties seek to reverse portions of an interlocutory judgment entered December 26, 1928, which enjoined the defendants from interfering with property and property rights, and determined that plaintiff is liable to its former employés for their wrongful discharge.Lamfrom, Tighe, Engelhard & Peck, of Milwaukee (Leon B. Lamfrom, of Milwaukee, of counsel), for appellant.

William F. Quick, of Milwaukee, for respondents.

STEVENS, J.

The case presents questions of far-reaching importance, which demand and have received mature and deliberate consideration by the court; questions which arise out of the modern development of industry,with its great aggregations of capital and large numbers of employees; questions which did not arise in the days when the employer worked beside his men. A study of the voluminous record satisfies the court that the findings of the trial court are amply sustained by the proof as to all facts material to a decision of the case.

The plaintiff had for many years been a large manufacturer of men's ready-made clothing. The defendants were employed in its factories in Milwaukee. Eighty per cent. of plaintiff's employees were women. Many of these employees had worked for plaintiff for periods varying from 20 to 30 years. For some years the relation of the union employees of the plaintiff had been regulated by contracts made with the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America. The last of these contracts by its terms expired on April 30, 1928.

[1] As early as January, 1928, the plaintiff had determined not to renew the contract with the unions, but to conduct its business as an open shop. It kept that decision secret. It realized that such a step would probably be followed by a controversy with organized labor. It prepared to meet such a struggle by contracting to have a part of its clothing manufactured elsewhere. It began a course of deliberate and systematic breaches of the contract then in existence, with the apparent purpose of inducing its employees to take some action that would throw upon them the onus of having precipitated this labor controversy.

Plaintiff dismantled one of its shops, and shipped the machinery used therein to another city, where it was used in manufacturing clothing. At the same time it led the 300 men and women employed in this shop to believe that they would be given work again as soon as the slack season was over. The plaintiff discharged union cutters and shop foremen without just cause therefor. It refused to rotate workmen, or to attempt to equalize work among its employees, as it was required to do by its contract. It refused to arbitrate any of these matters of difference, all in direct violation of the provisions of this contract.

The employees became restive because of the refusal of the plaintiff to abide by the terms of its contract. Finally, after the officers of the union had tried in vain to secure redress from the plaintiff, a meeting of the employees was held on April 16, 1928. While the plaintiff had not given formal permission for the holding of the meeting, the fact that it was to be held was generally known throughout the shops and to the superintendents thereof, if not to the principal officers of the plaintiff. It was held during the slack season. Many employees had been laid off. Others were working part time. Some worked through the noon hour in order to complete necessary work before attending the meeting. The trial court found that the participation of employees in this meeting did not seriously affect the operations carried on in any of plaintiff's shops, or cause appreciable inconvenience or damage to the plaintiff.

Plaintiff did not await the outcome of this meeting. It sought to make the meeting a justification for locking out all of its employees, regardless of whether they had participated in this meeting or not. It immediately notified the officials of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America in Chicago that the existing contract with the union was terminated upon what the trial court found to be “the sole and groundless claim that participation by some of the plaintiff's employees” in this meeting “constituted a ‘walk-out’ and ‘a serious and substantial breach of the contract.’ ”

During the day on which this meeting was held the plaintiff prepared a form of contract of re-employment, by which the employee was required to agree to work in an open shop and not to become a party to a strike or walk-out. When employees returned to work on the morning of April 17, 1928, they found the shops locked. They were informed that they could not return to work unless they signed this new contract of employment. The payment of wages then due was postponed for one day, in order that copies of this proposed contract might be presented to all employees then at work when they came to receive their pay.

These are among the facts established by the proof that lead to the conclusion that the plaintiff pursued a deliberate and consistent course of conduct which naturally led to the controversy with organized labor, with its accompanying acts of violence, which caused plaintiff to appeal to equity for protection.

[2] The plaintiff had the undoubted right to determine that its business should be run as an open shop, just as the employees had undoubted right to refuse to sign the proposed contract, and to insist upon their rights under the existing contract. But neither the plaintiff nor its employees had a right to resort to violence or unlawful means to secure the result desired by them.

The strike which followed the locking out of the employees was the natural result of the course of conduct pursued by the plaintiff. An examination of the record satisfies the court that it was a result which the plaintiff expected might follow its breach of the contract and the wrongful lockout of its employees. Otherwise it would not have made such careful and complete arrangements for conducting its manufacturing operations elsewhere than in Milwaukee, the scene of the labor trouble here in question.

The fact that the plaintiff refused to resort to the peaceable means provided by its contract with the unions for settling these troubles with its employees shows that the plaintiff did not want peace, and that it hoped to accomplish its purpose by precipitating a controversy with its former employees during the slack season, so that they would be driven to seek employment upon such terms as the plaintiff might offer, by the economic necessity which comes from unemployment, which in this case was caused in part, at least, by plaintiff's wrongful discharge and locking out of its employees.

[3] Plaintiff pursued a course of conduct that precipitated a labor war. When the tide of battle seemed to be setting against it, the plaintiff sought to withdraw from the field to which it had deliberately gone, and appealed to a court of equity for protection from the consequences that naturally flowed from the course of conduct which it had deliberately pursued.

A court of conscience will not extend its strong arm to protect one who has pursued...