Donnelly Garment Co. v. International LGW Union

• Decision Date: 28 October 1938
• Docket Number: 11287.,No. 11286,11286
• Citation: 99 F.2d 309
• Parties: DONNELLY GARMENT CO. et al., v. INTERNATIONAL LADIES' GARMENT WORKERS' UNION et al. DONNELLY GARMENT WORKERS' UNION et al. v. SAME.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

99 F.2d 309 (1938)

DONNELLY GARMENT CO. et al., v. INTERNATIONAL LADIES' GARMENT WORKERS' UNION et al.^*

DONNELLY GARMENT WORKERS' UNION et al. v. SAME.

Nos. 11286, 11287.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

October 28, 1938.

James A. Reed and William S. Hogsett, both of Kansas City, Mo. (Robert J. Ingraham, of Kansas City, Mo., on the brief), for appellants Donnelly Garment Co. and Donnelly Garment Sales Co.

Frank E. Tyler, of Kansas City, Mo. (Alfred N. Gossett, of Kansas City, Mo., on the brief), for appellants Donnelly Garment Workers' Union and others.

Frank P. Walsh and Roy W. Rucker, both of Kansas City, Mo. (Clif Langsdale and Jerome Walsh, both of Kansas City, Mo., on the brief), for appellees.

Before SANBORN, THOMAS, and BOOTH, Circuit Judges.

SANBORN, Circuit Judge.

These appeals are from a decree dismissing the complaint of the appellants Donnelly Garment Company and Donnelly Garment Sales Company and the complaint in intervention of the appellants Donnelly Garment Workers' Union et al. The Donnelly Garment Company and the Donnelly Garment Sales Company are Missouri corporations with offices and a factory in Kansas City. These companies manufacture and sell women's garments and do a nationwide business. The Donnelly Garment Workers' Union is an unincorporated association composed of all of the employees of these companies below the rank of supervisor. The appellee International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union is an international unincorporated association with a membership of some 250,000 persons who are employed in the women's garment industry. The other appellees are officers and agents of that union.

The suit out of which these appeals arise are brought on July 5, 1937, by appellants Donnelly Garment Company and Donnelly Garment Sales Company (hereafter referred to as plaintiffs) to restrain the appellees International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, its officers and agents (hereafter referred to as defendants), from doing certain acts (picketing, boycotting and otherwise interfering with plaintiffs' business, employees and customers) alleged to be in furtherance of a conspiracy violative of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act and the Clayton Act, 15 U.S.C. ch. 1, § 1 et seq., 15 U.S.C.A. § 1 et seq. The appellants Donnelly Garment Workers' Union and its representatives (hereafter referred to as interveners) were allowed to intervene and to file a complaint in intervention asking for similar relief against the defendants, as well as an injunction to restrain the plaintiffs from recognizing the defendant union as the representative of plaintiffs' employees for the purposes of collective bargaining. The complaint in intervention alleged that the defendants were not engaged in a labor dispute within the meaning of the Act of Congress of March 23, 1932, c. 90, 47 Stat. 70, 29 U.S.C., §§ 101-115, 29 U.S.C.A. §§ 101-115, known as the Norris-LaGuardia Act, nor within the meaning of the Act of Congress of July 5, 1935, c. 372, 49 Stat. 449, 29 U.S.C., §§ 151-166, 29 U.S.C.A. §§ 151-166, known as the National Labor Relations Act, and that no labor dispute was involved in the litigation, and that "if the actions and course of conduct of the defendants" were construed to be a "labor dispute" within the meaning of those statutes, the latter would be unconstitutional, as so interpreted, because in contravention of the Constitution of the United States. By amendment to their complaint, the plaintiffs incorporated similar allegations as to the inapplicability of the Norris-LaGuardia Act and its invalidity if so construed as to apply to this suit.

A temporary restraining order enjoining the defendants from committing the acts complained of was entered. A motion to dismiss the complaint and dissolve the restraining order was made by the defendants and was denied by the court on August 13, 1937. D.C., 20 F.Supp. 767. After the passage of the Act of August 24, 1937, c. 754, 50 Stat. 751, 28 U.S.C.A. §§ 17 and note, 349a, 380a and note, the District Judge having the case in charge certified to the Attorney General that the constitutionality of the Norris-LaGuardia Act and of the National Labor Relations Act had been drawn in question. At the request of the District Judge, a court of three judges was constituted to hear the motion of the defendants to dismiss the complaint and to dissolve the restraining order, and the motion of the plaintiffs and interveners for an interlocutory injunction restraining the defendants from committing the alleged unlawful acts complained of. The motion to dismiss was denied by that court, and the interlocutory injunction was granted. D.C., 21 F.Supp. 807. A majority of the three judges constituting the court held that the Norris-LaGuardia Act was inapplicable.

An appeal was then taken directly to the Supreme Court of the United States, which vacated the decree and remanded the cause for further proceedings, on the ground that the suit was not one to restrain the enforcement of any act of Congress and should not have been heard by a three-judge court under the Act of August 24, 1937, nor appealed directly to the Supreme Court. International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union et al. v. Donnelly Garment Co. et al., 304 U.S. 243, 58 S. Ct. 875, 82 L.Ed. 1316.

The plaintiffs and the interveners thereupon amended their complaints in order to bring themselves within the procedural requirements of the Norris-LaGuardia Act, although still asserting its inapplicability. The defendants then moved to dismiss the plaintiffs' and the interveners' amended complaints. These motions were heard by the court below and sustained. D.C., 23 F. Supp. 998. That court was of the opinion that the suit involved or grew out of a "labor dispute" as defined in the Norris-LaGuardia Act, that that Act was therefore applicable, and that the complaints did not state a case which would permit the granting of injunctive relief. The plaintiffs and the interveners have each appealed from the decree dismissing the complaints. The appeals were consolidated and heard together upon a single record.

The questions for decision are these:

(1) Does this suit involve or grow out of a "labor dispute" as defined by the Norris-LaGuardia Act?

(2) If the suit does involve or grow out of such a "labor dispute", is the case stated in the challenged pleadings one in which the trial court, under the restrictions of the Norris-LaGuardia Act, might grant injunctive relief?

As is usual in the case of demurrers and motions to dismiss pleadings, the parties are not in accord as to what facts are "well pleaded". We think it would serve no useful purpose to attempt to sift the complaints, which cover some 40 pages of the record, in an endeavor to separate facts, evidentiary and ultimate, from the mere conclusions of the pleaders. We are of the opinion that if, in view of what is alleged, it can reasonably be conceived that the plaintiffs and the interveners could, upon a trial, establish a case which would entitle them to injunctive relief, the motion to dismiss should not have been granted.

In Winget v. Rockwood, 8 Cir., 69 F. 2d 326, 329, this Court said:

"A suit should not ordinarily be disposed of on such a motion a motion to dismiss the bill for want of equity unless it clearly appears from the allegations of the bill that it must ultimately, upon final hearing, be dismissed. To warrant such dismissal, it should appear from the allegations that a cause of action does not exist, rather than that a cause of action has been defectively stated. * * *

"That rule of procedure should be followed which will be most likely to result in justice between the parties, and, generally speaking, that result is more likely to be attained by leaving the merits of the cause to be disposed of after answer and the submission of proof, than by attempting to deal with the merits on motion to dismiss the bill."

See, also, Thompson v. Terminal Shares, Inc., 8 Cir., 89 F.2d 652, 657; Ansehl v. Puritan Pharmaceutical Co., 8 Cir., 61 F. 2d 131, 133; Kansas v. Colorado, 185 U. S. 125, 145, 22 S.Ct. 552, 46 L.Ed. 838.

Stated briefly and generally, the charge which the plaintiffs and the interveners make against the defendants is that they are engaged in an unlawful conspiracy to force the plaintiffs' employees, against their will, to join the defendant union and to force the plaintiffs to compel their employees to join that union; that this conspiracy is a part of a larger conspiracy to unlawfully force all persons engaged in the women's garment industry to compel their employees to join the defendant union, so that that union can control the employment of all labor in, and the operations of, that industry and can extort from the workers in the industry large sums of money by way of dues, fines, etc.; that, to carry out the conspiracy, it is the purpose of the defendants to injure and destroy the interstate trade and commerce of persons engaged in the industry until such persons are forced to yield to defendants' demands and to compel their employees to join the defendant union, thereby destroying the rights of such employees to deal with their employers through representatives chosen by such employees; that, in furtherance of this conspiracy, the defendants have caused lawless gangs to assault the employees of persons under attack and to threaten such employees and their families with bodily harm if they continued to work for their employer and continued to refuse to join the defendant union, and that the defendants have, by threats and violence, prevented such employees from working; that, in furtherance of this conspiracy, the defendants have published false and libelous reports about the plaintiff companies and the working conditions in their plant, have taken steps to inaugurate secondary boycotts against their customers and their merchandise in various states, and have threatened to perpetrate against the plaintiffs the same fraudulent, violent and...