Ex parte Twedell

• Decision Date: 29 January 1958
• Docket Number: No. A-6536,A-6536
• Citation: 158 Tex. 214,309 S.W.2d 834
• Parties: Ex parte Dick TWEDELL.
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

Page 834

309 S.W.2d 834

158 Tex. 214

Ex parte Dick TWEDELL.

No. A-6536.

Supreme Court of Texas.

Jan. 29, 1958.

Rehearing Denied Feb. 26, 1958.

Mullinax, Wells & Morris, Dallas, Jacobs & Ratner, Chicago, Ill., for petitioner.

Emil Corenbleth, Dallas, for respondent.

SMITH, Justice.

This is an original habeas corpus proceeding filed on behalf of Dick Twedell from a commitment order on a judgment of contempt issued by the Judge of the 44th Judicial District Court of Dallas County, Texas, for violation of a temporary injunction in a civil suit styled Minyards No. 2, Inc. v. Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America, Local No. 540, AFL-CIO et al., in which Minyard's #1, Inc. and Minyard's #3, Inc. to #7, inclusive intervened. All of these stores shall hereinafter be referred to as 'Minyard Stores' or 'The Stores'.

The judgment of contempt held relator in violation of the district court's order of temporary injuction, issued in the same cause on July 31, 1957, in which relator and other named defendants, including Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America, Local No. 540, AFL-CIO (hereinafter referred to as Union) were:

'* * * enjoined and restrained from picketing or carrying any signs of any character at or near the places of business of the plaintiff and intervenors, as follows, to wit:

'Minyard's #2, Inc., 4900 Lindsley, Dallas, Texas,

'Minyard's #1, Inc., 6015 Lindsley, Dallas, Texas,

'Minyard's #3, Inc., 205 W. Irving Blvd., Irving, Texas

'Minyard's #4, Inc., 4325 Lovers Lane, Dallas, Texas

'Minyard's #5, Inc. 3726 North-west Highway, Dallas, Texas

'Minyard's #6, Inc., 9937 Garland Road, Dallas, Texas

'Minyard's #7, Inc., 125 E. Main Street, Mesquite, Texas;

from publishing, orally or in writing, any statement concerning their representation of any employees of the plaintiff and intervenors, the plaintiff and intervenors' refusal to bargain with them, and any statement with reference to the plaintiff and intervenors being unfair', and further enjoined them from in any way 'urging, compelling, forcing, or coercing that plaintiff and intervenors to recognize or bargain with them, or from urging, compelling, forcing or coercing any employee of the plaintiff and intervenors to join or solicit them as their representative; and from in any way attempting to or inducing the public not to purchase merchandise from the plaintiff and intervenors; and, from interfering with the plaintiff and intervenors in the ownership, use, and enjoyment of their property, and their right to engage in a lawful business. * * *'

On June 19, 1957 relator, in his capacity as President of the Union, wrote A. W. Minyard, President of each of the eight Minyard grocery stores in the Dallas area, advising that the Union intended to establish a picket line in front of his place of business, and that the purpose of this picket line was to call the attention of union members and supporters of organized labor that Minyard 'meat department employees are not members of Local No. 540.' ¹ The letter expressed the hope that such a demonstration of support would persuade the meat department employees to join the union. Relator testified that such was the only purpose of the picketing which followed.

Relator and other agents of the union began picketing of various Minyard Stores, including the store of Minyard's No. 2, Inc., plaintiff below, on June 21, 1957, with a placard reading as follows:

'Meat department Employees of Minyard Stores at this location are not members of Local 540, AMC and BW NA, AFL-CIO.'

On that same day, Minyard's No. 2, Inc., joined by six other Minyard Stores (each separately incorporated), as intervenors, sought and obtained a temporary restraining order from the district court.

The Stores filed their petition alleging that through such picketing pressure was being brought to bear upon each store to force their employees to join the union in violation of the public policy of the state, the Right to Work Laws, and the other labor laws of the State of Texas, and the antitrust laws of the State of Texas.

The Stores further alleged that as the result of such acts and conduct their stores suffered a loss of business. It was stipulated that Mr. Minyard would testify that the picketing caused a decrease in business. Respondents alleged that no labor dispute existed between The Stores and their employees, and that the union represented none of their employees.

The Stores pleaded that the picketing and the acts and conduct of the defendants were in violation of the civil and criminal statutes of the State of Texas, including Article 5154g, Article 5154d, and Article 5154f, Vernon's Annotated Civil Statutes of Texas, and Articles 1632, 1634, and 1635 of the Vernon's Ann.P.C. of the State of Texas. They further specifically alleged that the acts of picketing were unlawful, in that the Texas statutes provide that the right of persons to work shall not be denied or abridged on account of their nonmembership in any labor union or labor organization, and that in the exercise of such right, all employees shall be free from threats, force, intimidation, or coercion; that the defendants have violated such rights and the public policy of this state by picketing with the object of urging compelling, forcing, or coercing the plaintiff to recognize or bargain with the defendants, and urging, compelling, forcing or coercing the employees of the plaintiff to join the union or select it as their representative.

On June 24, 1957, the defendants, in the original suit, including relator, filed their motion to dismiss the cause and motion to dissolve the temporary restraining order, assigning various reasons, among them being that the defendants, through their acts, were engaged in a lawful expression of free speech and that the publications were truthful statements relating to their efforts to organize the meat department employees of plaintiff's stores and the fact that employees were not members of Local No. 540; that all of the publications were privileged and guaranteed under the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Texas; that the public had the right to know whether or not plaintiff's employees were union members, and that the picket sign clearly set out the lawful purpose of such picketing.

The motion to dismiss the cause contains the contention that the state court lacked jurisdiction of the parties and the subject matter for the reason that the cause of action, if any, alleged by plaintiff, has been pre-empted by the Congress of the United States and jurisdiction lies exclusively in in National Labor Relations Board and the remedy is available under the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, as amended (Taft-Hartley Act).

The trial court, after a hearing on the petition for temporary injunction, as well as the motion to dismiss the cause, and to dissolve the temporary restraining order, overruled the motion to dismiss and to dissolve, and granted the temporary injunction as above indicated. No appeal was taken from such action, although notice of appeal was given.

The record shows that after entry of the temporary injunction, and notwithstanding such injunction, relator and the union resumed picketing of vaious Minyard Stores and caused to be published as a newspaper advertisement and also circulated as a pamphlet, the following printed matter:

'Notice

'The Meat Department Employees of the Minyard Food Stores Are Non-Union

To the Public

'Local No. 540, Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America, AFL-CIO, is currently engaged in a campaign to organize the Minyard meat department employees, to provide them with the same high standards of wages, hours and working conditions now prevailing in union meat markets and departments throughout Dallas, where the A.M.C. and B.W. of N.A. Union Label is displayed.

'Please support the Effort to Unionize the Minyard Meat Departments

Buy Union

and Demonstrate That Union Members, Their Families and

Friends, Patronize Only

Union Butcher Shops Displaying This Label

(Facsimile of Union label bearing in large print UNION

MARKET and also considerable and smaller printing)

'The Minyard Stores Do Not Display This Label. They are Non-Union.'

The district court found that relator and the union had violated its temporary injunction for the reason that they 'have committed acts of picketing, have delivered and circularized pamphlets and circulars, and have caused to be published a newspaper advertisement * * *', and therefore adjudged them in contempt.

The questions presented by relator's petition for habeas corpus are: (1) whether the district court had jurisdiction to enjoin the acts of picketing and publication, or (2) whether the regulation of such conduct lies exclusively within the jurisdiction of federal tribunals pursuant to the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947 (Taft-Hartley Act), 29 U.S.C.A. §§ 141-168, jurisdiction of the parties and subject matter having been pre-empted by said federal statute; and (3) whether the acts of picketing, distributing handbills and publishing newspaper advertisements, for which relator was held in contempt, were privileged acts of free speech and free press protected by Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution of the State of Texas, Vernon's Ann.St., and by the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution of the United States.

Minyard Stores present two counter points wherein they challenge the right of the relator to present the issues by habeas corpus proceedings. It being the contention that the injunction having become final and no appeal having been taken, the violation thereof as was shown in this case after the finality of a valid injunction amounts in law to constructive contempt, and the habeas corpus proceeding being a collateral attack upon the judgment, such judgment must be absolutely void to be subject to such an attack. We understand the...