Ellingsen v. Milk Wagon Drivers' Union of Chicago, Local 753

• Decision Date: 13 June 1941
• Docket Number: No. 25381.,25381.
• Citation: 377 Ill. 76,35 N.E.2d 349
• Parties: ELLINGSEN et al. v. MILK WAGON DRIVERS' UNION OF CHICAGO, LOCAL 753, et al.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

377 Ill. 76

35 N.E.2d 349

ELLINGSEN et al.

v.MILK WAGON DRIVERS' UNION OF CHICAGO, LOCAL 753, et al.

No. 25381.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

June 13, 1941.

Suit by Meydel Ellingsen and others against the Milk Wagon Drivers' Union of Chicago, Local 753, and others to enjoin the defendants from picketing the plaintiffs' stores. Decree for the plaintiffs, and the defendants appeal.

Decree reversed and cause remanded, with directions.Appeal from Superior Court, Cook County; John J. Lupe, Judge.

David A. Riskind and Abraham W. Brussell, both of Chicago, for appellants.

Edgar J. Cook, of Chicago, for appellees.

STONE, Justice.

The superior court of Cook county, on the complaint of fifty-seven storeowners, enjoined the defendant Milk Wagon Drivers' Union and certain of its members, from picketing stores of the plaintiffs or engaging in conversation with the owners, customers, or deliverymen delivering goods to such stores, or displaying banners, or interfering or attempting to interfere with persons with whom the plaintiffs were doing business, or by persuading or attempting to persuade by misrepresentation, fraud or coercion, such persons or their agents to break their contracts with the plaintiffs.

The defendants, according to the charge in the complaint, were interfering with plaintiffs' places of business by picketing their stores, interfering with customers, making threats and doing unlawful acts in pursuance of an alleged conspiracy to injure the business of the plaintiffs. Plaintiffs aver that there is no labor dispute existing between the plaintiffs and defendants and that the provisions of the Anti-Injunction Act of this State do not apply.

Defendants, in their answer, denied use of force or interference with customers or making threats, and denied the existence of a conspiracy. They claim that this is a labor dispute within the provisions of the Anti-Injunction Act, Ill.Rev.Stat.1939, c. 48, § 2a, in that drivers employed by the Farmers Co-operative Milk Company and the vendors handling the products of that company, who are not unionized, received less compensation and are under poorer working conditions and hours of employment than the union drivers, with the resulting detriment to the members of the defendants' union, because of unfair competition resulting from the ability of the Farmers Co-operative Milk Company, hereinafter referred to as the milk company, to sell milk for less, and that for these reasons their rights are infringed upon.

The record shows that defendant union unsuccessfully undertook to unionize the milk industry and to require those employing the system used by the milk company to pay their employees a fixed weekly salary and to adhere to other conditions of employment. They claim that in picketing the stores as they did, they were but exercising their constitutional right to freedom of speech. Plaintiffs reply that the drivers and vendors who purchase the products of the milk company are members of a labor union known as the Chicago Vendors, Drivers and Dairy Workers' Union, and are not employees of the stores that were being picketed, and that there is, therefore, no labor dispute involved.

The master heard the evidence and reported recommending the issuance of the injunction here complained of. The evidence in the case tends to show that the defendants posted certain members of their union in front of the stores of four out of the fifty-seven plaintiffs, and threatened to picket the rest of them. These union members patrolled in front of the stores carrying a placard bearing the legend, ‘This store is unfair to Milk Wagon Drivers' Union, Local 753 I.B.T. affiliated with the A. F. of L.’ It is not contended that there was violence in the sense of physical assault or destruction of property, but that, by statements and actions of a threatening nature, the pickets sought to coerce deliverymen and others, to whom such pickets were talking, into staying out of the stores; that they blocked the entrance of one of the stores and caused drivers delivering merchandise purchased by the storekeeper whose places were picketed, to drive away without making delivery, and by threats and false statements attempted to keep customers from going into these stores and doing business with them, by which means plaintiffs say they wrongfully interfered with the right of the plaintiffs to do business and to have their contracts fulfilled.

The milk company distributes its products by its own drivers and by vendors, as they are called, who purchase the milk from the company and distribute it with their own trucks to customers. The products of the milk company are also distributed by the owners of independent stores. The Chicago Vendors, Drivers and Dairy Workers' Union, to which the employees and vendors handling the milk company products belong, is in no way affiliated with the defendant union. It is, therefore, charged by the plaintiffs that there is no labor dispute existing between the milk company and its employees, nor between these plaintiffs and defendants, and that the plaintiffs, storekeepers, have no employees who are eligible to membership in the defendant union.

Assignments of error present the questions whether the Anti-Injunction Act of this State applies, whether the picketing was peaceful, whether the injunction order deprived defendants of their constitutionally guaranteed right of free speech, and whether the decree is uncertain and indefinite.

The facts of this case and the questions involved are in many respects similar to those raised in Meadowmoor Dairies, Inc. v. Milk Wagon Drivers' Union, 371 Ill. 377, 21 N.E.2d 308. This court in that case considered the applicability of the Anti-Injunction Act of this State, the guaranties of freedom of speech in the operation of labor, the free and open use of property by its owner, freedom of contract and the right to do business without molestation. It was held that the Anti-Injunction Act of this State was not broad enough to cover cases where there was no labor dispute between employers and employees. It was also held that where picketing is a part of violence and destruction of property, all picketing may be enjoined, though some features of it, except for such violence, are not unlawful. It was there, under the facts of that case, held also that what took place amounted to a secondary boycott, which was contrary to the laws of this State and constituted an illegal activity on the part of the defendants.

In Swing v. American Federation of Labor, 372 Ill. 91, 22 N.E.2d 857, similar questions arose. In that case members of the Hairdressers and Cosmetologists Union attempted to unionize the plaintiff's beauty parlor. Failing to do so, picketing followed, and Swing, the owner of the shop, and his employees sought an injunction. The complaint alleged that there was no dispute between them and defendants; that plaintiff, owner, was not objecting to membership of his employees in the union, and, therefore, there was no labor dispute between the parties to the suit, as contemplated by the Anti-Injunction Act. The complaint also charged that malicious and untrue statements were made; that in some cases the pickets forcibly interfered with the customers. This court held that a preliminary injunction was properly issued because no dispute existed between the employer and his employees; that there were acts of violence and that the placards used in picketing were libelous. The questions before this court arose over an order for a temporary injunction issued by the Appellate Court for the First District, which court had reversed the chancellor's decree dismissing the complaint on motion of the defendants. 298 Ill.App. 63, 18 N.E.2d 258. This court affirmed the order of the Appellate Court on the ground that the Anti-Injunction Act of this State did not apply and the complaint was sufficient-the facts alleged being admitted by the motion to dismiss-to warrant such preliminary restraint. Thereafter, the Appellate Court entered a permanent injunction enjoining acts of violence, threats and intimidation and enjoined peaceful picketing as well as acts of violence.

Both the Meadowmoor case and the Swing case were taken to the Supreme Court of the United States, a Federal constitutional question being involved. The former was taken by certiorari to this court and the latter by such writ to the Appellate Court. Since the submission of the case before us the United States Supreme Court has decided both those cases. In the Meadowmoor case, 312 U.S. 287, 61 S.Ct. 552, 555, 85 L.Ed. 836, 132 A.L.R. 1200, it was pointed out that the construction by this court of the Illinois Anti-Injunction Act was beyond the jurisdiction of the United States Court to review, but rulings on questions of constitutional guaranties of freedom of speech lie within the jurisdiction of that court to review. It was there held that the injunction was justified by the violence shown in connection with the picketing, and that whether in an injunction case of this character the State court should enjoin non-tortious acts as well as acts of violence and intimidation where the peaceful acts of picketing are so enmeshed with violence that it can be justifiably concluded ‘that the momentum of fear generated by past violence would survive even though future picketing might be wholly peaceful,’ was a matter of policy of the State which the Supreme Court of the United States did not have jurisdiction to review.

It is, of course, recognized that in all questions involving provisions of the Federal constitution, the Supreme Court of the United States is the final arbiter, and this court is bound by its holding on such questions. In the Meadowmoor case the Supreme Court of the United States held that, notwithstanding the lack of application of the Illinois Anti-Injunction Act, the question of picketing as an element of free speech involved the application of the Federal constitution....