Evening Times Printing & Publ'g Co. v. Am. Newspaper Guild

• Decision Date: 24 May 1938
• Docket Number: No. 233.,233.
• Citation: 124 N.J.Eq. 71,199 A. 598
• Parties: EVENING TIMES PRINTING & PUBLISHING CO. v. AMERICAN NEWSPAPER GUILD et al.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

199 A. 598

124 N.J.Eq. 71

EVENING TIMES PRINTING & PUBLISHING CO.

v. AMERICAN NEWSPAPER GUILD et al.

No. 233.

Court of Errors and Appeals of New Jersey.

May 24, 1938.

Syllabus by the Court.

1. When the proofs submitted by complainant on bill for permanent injunction show a threatening, irreparable mischief which should be averted until opportunity is offered for a full and deliberate investigation of the case, and the sworn denials fail in preciseness and particularity and do not carry conviction, and upon the entire showing from both sides it appears reasonably probable that the complainant has the right claimed, preliminary injunction may issue.

2. Actions by strikers against a newspaper plant, involving molestation, violence, coercion, compulsion, insults and the like, whether part of or independent of a picketing process, held, on the facts as shown, properly within the scope of a preliminary injunction.

3. Chapter 207, P.L.1926, R.S.1937, 2:29-77, does not relate to the factual situation upon which the finding stated in the second syllabus rests.

4. A writ of injunction should be plain and certain on the face of it and may not be used to forbid an "illegal" act without specifying what acts are enjoined against.

5. The use of a sound truck by strikers to broadcast misrepresentations as to the causes of the strike and opprobrious names against the employer, held, under the circumstances of the case, subject to restraint by preliminary injunction.

6. Decision reserved as to certain uses, incident to a strike, of a sound truck with broadcasting amplifier, and also as to the use of such an apparatus, per se.

7. Picketing defined for the purposes of the decision, as embracing the essentials of a fixed station, beat or patrol and the posting of a person or persons thereat in an effort to compel a yielding to the strikers' demands.

8. Picketing, as a strike offensive, elsewhere than at the plant where the strike was in progress, held, under the circumstances of the case, to have been properly restrained by preliminary injunction.

9. Specifically, a preliminary injunction against picketing the premises of a merchant who had no connection with either the employer or the striking employees and no part in the issues of a strike other than that he was an advertiser in the employing newspaper held to have been properly allowed.

10. The restraints mentioned in syllabi 8 and 9 are not violative of chapter 207, P.L. 1926, R.S.1937, 2:29-77, article 1, section 5 of the State Constitution or the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution, U.S.C.A.Const. Amend. 14.

DONGES, HEHER and PERSKIE, Justices, dissenting in part.

Appeal from Court of Chancery.

Suit by the Evening Times Printing & Publishing Company against the American Newspaper Guild and others to obtain a perpetual restraint against certain activities of the defendants in connection with their strike against the complainant. From adverse orders, 122 N.J.Eq. 545, 195 A. 378, the defendants appeal.

Orders modified and, as so modified, affirmed, and record remitted with directions.

Abraham J. Isserman and Isserman & Isserman, all of Newark, for appellants. Alfred Brenner, of Bayonne, for respondent.

CASE, Justice.

The case presents appeals from two orders in Chancery, entered on the advice of Vice Chancellor Egan, restraining the defendants-appellants, pending final hearing, from certain activities in their strike against the complainant publisher of the Bayonne Times, a daily newspaper. The bill recites the differences between complainant and the defendants, one of which was that the defendants demanded a "closed-shop" contract, recites further the incidents of the strike and the alleged unlawful actions of the defendants, charges imminent irreparable damages and prays a perpetual restraint against enumerated activities. The matter is here on bill of complaint, order to show cause, complainant's affidavits in support, defendants' affidavits in denial and the orders of preliminary restraint. If there be an answer, it is not before us and has no part in our study.

Setting off the defendants' proofs against those submitted by the complainant, it is still reasonably certain that on the morning of November 12, 1937, there were conditions at the newspaper plant which amounted to mass picketing by the defendants, that disorder ensued which resulted in the calling of the police, that there were physical collisions and that the provocative name of? "scab" was flung at those who remained or attempted to remain at their work. It clearly appears that later there was a systematic offensive against merchants of the City of Bayonne who had no connection with either complainant or defendants and no part in the issues other than that they were advertisers in the newspaper and that if an advertiser did not, upon request, withdraw his advertisement, his place of business was subjected to patrol by individuals who carried a placard containing this or a similar wording:—"This store advertises in the Bayonne Times which is unfair to its reporters"; also that defendants operated a sound truck which, equipped with a loud speaker and an amplifying device which caused the statements therefrom to be audible for several blocks, proceeded at a slow speed of approximately five miles per hour through the principal avenues, made other announcements and proclaimed, specifying the Bayonne Times by name, "Don't read a scab newspaper", "Don't buy a scab newspaper", "Don't Advertise in a scab newspaper". Immediate resort was had by complainant to the Court of Chancery. From and including November 13, 1937, defendants have been under constant restraint, first by ad interim stay contained in the order to show cause and following the determination of the order to show cause by the preliminary injunctions now under review.

An objection is raised by the defendants which, if well made, militates in limine against the allowance of any preliminary injunction, namely, that defendants filed affidavits in denial of those presented by the complainant and that consequently all restraint should have been denied. Ordinarily, preliminary injunctive relief will not be granted where complainant's affidavits in support of the bill are met by a full explicit and circumstantial denial under oath, Bayonne Textile Corp. v. American, etc., Silk Workers, 116 N.J. Eq. 146, 172 A. 551, 92 A.L.R. 1450, but this general rule has, from the enunciation of it, been recognized as having exceptions, Citizens' Coach Co. v. Camden Horse R. Co., 29 N.J.Eq. 299, at page 306. Note the procedure followed by Vice Chancellor Stevensen in Jersey City Printing Co. v. Cassidy, 63 N.J.Eq. 759, 770, 53 A. 230. Moreover, it will appear from the brief resume of facts given supra that the affidavits filed by the defendants do not contain the explicit, circumstantial and convincing denials which the sponsors impute to them. Where the denials fail in precise-ness and particularity and do not carry conviction, and upon the entire showing from both sides it appears reasonably probable that the complainant had the right claimed, the injunction may issue. Ideal Laundry Co. v. Gugliemone, 107 N.J.Eq. 108, 151 A. 617. The object of a preliminary injunction is to prevent some threatening, irreparable mischief which should be averted until opportunity is offered for a full and deliberate investigation of the case. Thompson ex rel. Board of Chosen Freeholders v. City of Paterson, 9 N.J.Eq. 624; Meyer v. Somerville Water Co., 79 N.J.Eq. 613, 615, 82 A. 915. Acts destroying a complainant's business, custom and profits do an irreparable injury and authorize the issue of a preliminary injunction. Scherman v. Stern, 93 N.J.Eq. 626, 117 A. 631. If the methods undertaken by the defendants had been permitted while the lawfulness of them and of the strike was being tried out, the probability is that publication would have been indefinitely interrupted and the complainant irreparably damaged. The urgency of the need for uninterrupted publication of a daily newspaper is apparent. As we view the conditions, the complainant was confronted with three possible courses of action: submit to irreparable injury, surrender without contest, or seek injunctive relief. It chose the last. The state of proofs was not such, in our opinion, as to prevent the granting or restraint pending final hearing.

We proceed to consider the several restraints, which the orders set out in lettered paragraphs. There are seventeen designated (a) to (q), respectively, in the order of November 22, 1937, and two, designated (a) and (b), respectively, in the supplemental order of December 1, 1937.

Paragraphs (a) to (f) inclusive and paragraphs (i), (m) and (p) of the order of November 22, 1937, may be summed up as restraining the defendants from committing personal molestation with intent to coerce, from addressing willing worker's to the point of annoyance, from loitering or picketing in the streets with intent to procure molestation or effect annoyance to workers in order to stop them from working, from using violence and making threats thereof, from voicing insults, abusive epithets and like annoyances upon workers with intent to coerce, from going to the homes of the complainant's employees for the purpose of intimidating, annoying or coercing them to leave its employ, and from directing or aiding others to commit such acts; also from using coercion upon advertisers to accomplish withdrawal of their advertisements. Actions of this sort, involving molestation, violence, coercion, compulsion, insults and the like, whether part of or independent of a picketing process, were, we think, on the facts as shown, properly within the scope of the preliminary injunction. International Ticket Co. v. Wendrich, 123 N.J.Eq. 172, 196 A. 474; Keuffel & Esser v. International Association of Machinists, 93 N.J. Eq. 429, 116 A. 9. Comparison of the facts and the mentioned items of...