Diamond Block Coal Co. v. U. M. W. A.

• Decision Date: 18 June 1920
• Citation: 188 Ky. 477
• Parties: Diamond Block Coal Company v. United Mine Workers of America, et al.
• Court: Kentucky Court of Appeals

188 Ky. 477

Diamond Block Coal Company v. United Mine Workers of America, et al.

Court of Appeals of Kentucky.

Decided June 18, 1920.

On Motion to Dissolve a Temporary Injunction Granted by Hon. John C. Eversole, Judge of the Perry Circuit Court.

C. W. NAPIER and T. E. MOORE, JR., for appellant.

JESSE MORGAN, W. O. DAVIS and EDWARD C. O'REAR for appellees.

OPINION BY JUDGE SAMPSON — Dissolving injunction.

The Diamond Block Coal Company, a Virginia corporation doing a coal mining business in Perry county, Kentucky, filed its petition in the Perry circuit court on March 10, 1920, praying the clerk to grant it an immediate temporary restraining order and that the court make this perpetual, enjoining and restraining the defendants, United Mine Workers of America, and seventeen individuals named in the petition as defendants, and all persons working by, through or under them, or in their employment, from proceeding to erect, construct or build or attempting to erect, construct or build, near the coal plant of the plaintiff, shacks, houses or tents, or shelter of any kind, and from placing therein, or attempting to place therein any person or persons for the purpose of inducing or persuading any of its employes, laborer or laborers to break their contracts of employment with the plaintiff, and from doing divers other things set forth in the prayer of the petition; and as the petition was properly verified and bond given, the clerk of the court on that day granted a temporary restraining order in accordance with the prayer of the petition, and a copy of this order was served upon each of the eighteen defendants. At the time the judge of the Perry circuit court was absent from the county, and this was alleged in the petition. After alleging that the plaintiff is a corporation organized under the laws of Virginia for the purpose of mining and selling coal from its lease of 1,493½ acres of valuable coal land, located about three miles above the town of Hazard, in Perry county, upon which lease it has seventy-eight houses for its employes, and a tipple, railroad switch and other improvements necessary in mining and marketing coal, and that it has been running its mine regularly and finding a market for its product for about four years without experiencing any labor troubles, and that its employes about seventy-five in number, were content and well satisfied with the labor conditions prevailing at the mines, it alleges that the defendants, naming them, "are each claiming to have some connection of some sort with their co-defendant, United Mine Workers of America, and as such, with the exception of the defendants, Jack Morris and Lee Marks, are and have been for some time holding meetings for the purpose, as the plaintiff is informed, of attempting to interfere in some way with what they term the miners employed and engaged in its mine, and all workers employed by it in and about its mine, but so far have failed to make any headway thereat, but the plaintiff now says that the defendants acting together and in concert with each other, and individually are now threatening to come near to and in to the plant of the plaintiff and erect nearby its plant, and within 200 yards thereof, houses, tents, shacks and buildings, barns and to drill wells and open up a regular camp for agitators for the purpose of intimidating, alarming and disturbing its employes, and its officers and managers in charge of its plant to such extent that they will abandon their contracts of employment with it either through fear of violence or through the unlawful persuasion used by the defendants in their efforts to break the contracts of labor between it and its employees, and induce them to quit its employment and come into the camp which they are erecting near by, and at which camp they propose to take any employee who is not engaged, and will not become engaged in the actual mining of coal, and keep him at their own expense, and house, clothe and feed him and his family provided he is not employed in the mining of coal, and will assist him in their unlawful way, and hinder it in the production of coal at its mines, and that the purpose and intention of the defendants and each of them in the location of the said camp and the construction of houses, shacks and the erection of tents thereon is to either by intimidation or by persuasion entice each and all of its employees at said mines to abandon their contracts of employment and labor with it, and thereby force it to close out its mines; and that each of the defendants are working together and in conjunction with each other under and by an agreement with each other for this purpose, and this purpose alone."

It is further alleged that the defendants are attempting to establish a camp near the mines of the plaintiff company for the purpose of lodging therein agitators to bring about unrest and dissension among its employes and thereby cause a strike and to prejudice the minds of its employes against it. The petition also avers that certain of the defendants are non-residents of the state and are what are known as walking delegates or international organizers, imported for the purpose of fomenting unrest and disturbance in and about its camp, and that all of these persons are acting together in an attempt to do the plaintiff injury, and "are threatening to come into its camp and among its men in crowds and numbers and by demonstrations and by other acts and demonstrations cause dissension and strife among its employes to such an extent that it will bring about disorganization in its plant such as will prevent its operating same; that the defendants are threatening to build a number of shacks and to erect a number of tents nearby plaintiff's mines for the purpose of housing men in furtherance of the plan and scheme on the part of the defendants to induce and persuade plaintiff's employes to break their contracts with it and to become idle, and thus bring about a complete shutdown of plaintiff's mines."

The answer traverses each of the material allegations of the petition, and affirmatively pleads that the United Mine Workers of America is a voluntary association with more than a half a million members scattered over the United States; that there is no statutory provision of law in this state authorizing an action against voluntary association, and it pleads and relies upon this fact as a complete bar and abatement to plaintiff's action; and further that the United Mine Workers of America, a voluntary association of working people, is authorized by an act of Congress dated June 20, 1886, chapter 567, section 424, statutes 86, and is what is known as a national trade union organized "for the purpose of aiding its members to become more skillful and efficient workers, the promotion of their general intelligence, the elevation of their character, the regulation of their wages and their hours and conditions of labor; the protection of their individual rights in the prosecution of their trade or trades, the raising of funds for the benefit of sick, disabled or unemployed members or the families of deceased members, or for such other object or objects for which working people may lawfully combine, having in view their mutual protection or benefit."

By reply the affirmative matter of the answer was traversed, and it was averred that if the defendants and each of them were not enjoined from doing the things complained of in the petition, the plaintiff would suffer great loss and damage. To this reply defendants filed a rejoinder, the affirmative allegations of which were by agreement controverted of record.

On March 23rd the defendants gave notice and entered a motion before Hon. John C. Eversole, judge of the Perry circuit court, "to dissolve, cancel and set aside the restraining order" granted by the clerk, and this motion was heard partly upon affidavits and partly on oral evidence which was taken down in shorthand and transcribed and made a part of the record now under consideration. Plaintiff, the Diamond Block Coal Company, filed and read ten affidavits, one of the affidavits containing the names of about fifty deponents, but only six of these affiants relate facts which are pertinent to the issue, the others stating only that they had been approached by persons representing themselves to be members of the organization known as United Mine Workers of America, and solicited to join the union and offered its benefits, and that they refused so to do because they were perfectly content with the conditions surrounding their employment with the plaintiff. Of the six who gave relative evidence, if the persons mentioned had been defendants, one of them, W. A. Shumate, named Lon Hamilton, McKinley Fowler and one Couch as threatening him if he did not join the union. Neither Hamilton, Fowler nor Couch are defendants and are not shown to be members of the United Mine Workers. The next affiant, Joe Cornett, stated that while in the employ of the plaintiff Lon Hamilton and Harrison McIntyre, representing themselves as members of the union, approached him and urged him to join the union and told him that he "did not get any grub allowance as an employe of the Diamond Block Coal Company, but that if he would join their union they would see to it that he was given his grub and seventy-five cents a day; that the union was going to build houses in close proximity to the Diamond Block Coal Company and there take care of their men and keep them there and feed and house them and pay them money while they were not working." At another time he stated that Clay Lawson and Fultz Newberry, also representing themselves as members of the union, told him that it was useless to guard the tipple, "that the union men could blow it up if they wanted to and that the damn thing ought to be blown up anyway." And at another time Harrison McIntyre stated to affiant that he "did not see any use in the company fighting the union...