Fashioncraft, Inc. v. Halpern
| Decision Date | 29 March 1943 |
| Citation | 48 N.E.2d 1,313 Mass. 385 |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
| Parties | FASHIONCRAFT, INC. v. JACK HALPERN & others. |
November 6, 1942.
Present: FIELD, C.
J., DONAHUE, QUA COX, & RONAN, JJ.
Labor and Labor Union. Unlawful Interference. Strike. Picketing. Constitutional Law, Freedom of speech. Equity Pleading and Practice, Parties, Injunction.
Peaceful picketing by a labor union of the premises of an employer who had had no contractual relations with the union and no controversy with his employees, some of whom joined the union after the picketing began and participated therein, was unlawful and was properly enjoined where its purpose was to compel the employer to adopt a closed shop.
The substantive law as to the illegality of a strike or picketing for a closed shop was not changed by St. 1935, c. 407.
The fact that officers of a labor union, defendants in a suit to enjoin picketing, did not fairly represent the other members of the union, did not make improper an injunction against them personally and as such officers but not against the other members of the union.
An injunction against a defendant's conducting himself in a certain manner should not be issued in the absence of proof that he has so conducted himself or is likely to do so.
BILL IN EQUITY filed in the Superior Court on March 24, 1942. The suit was heard by O'Connell, J.
G. E. Roewer, for the defendants.
S. B. Stein, (C.
Evans with him,) for the plaintiff.
The plaintiff, a manufacturer of rain-proof garments, brings this bill in equity against the defendants, Barker, Mussman and Fraioli, officers and members of the Waterproof Garment Workers' Union, Local 24, hereafter called the local, and against the defendants Roberts and Halpern, the regional director and organizer respectively of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, hereafter called the international union, and against the defendant Levenson, a member of a third union, to enjoin all the defendants and members of the local and the international union from continuing a strike against the plaintiff. The defendants appealed from a final decree restraining them from maintaining the strike.
The facts appear in the report of material facts made by the trial judge. A controversy existed in the middle of February, 1942, between the local and an association composed of manufacturers of rain coats, relative to the renewal of a contract between them. The local declared a strike against the members of the association and also the plaintiff. The president of a large manufacturing plant, who was the president of this association, held himself out as authorized to speak for all the members of the association, some of whom were proprietors of "open shops," so called. The officers of the local, relying upon the representations of the president of the association, mistakenly, but in good faith, believed that the plaintiff was a member of this association when the vote to strike was taken. The plaintiff at that time had no contractual relations with the local and none of its employees, all of whom were satisfied with their wages and terms of employment, were members of the local. One employee joined the local before the strike began on February 24 1942, and thereafter and up to the time of the trial twenty-nine out of sixty employees of the plaintiff had become members of the local. Some of them engaged in picketing the plaintiff's premises. The judge found that the picketing, which began on the last mentioned date, has been conducted in a peaceable manner although a larger number of pickets than reasonably necessary and generally in excess of the number authorized by the police has been maintained in front of the plaintiff's plant which had only a small street frontage. He also found that there was "`Mass Picketing,' that is, making a demonstration not necessary for reasonable or effective `picketing' . . . [which] met with definite objection by the police." The picketing has prevented the plaintiff from receiving shipments by express or vehicles operated by members of other unions and has compelled it to rely wholly on the parcel post. It has thereby been greatly handicapped in conducting its business. The business is of an interstate character. The object of the local is to secure a closed shop. Efforts to settle the strike with the aid of the State Board of Conciliation and Arbitration failed because the plaintiff refused to submit the issue of a closed shop to the board and took the position that if a majority of its employees were members of the local, then the latter could be certified as the representative of the employees for the purpose of collective bargaining by proceedings before the National or State labor relations board. The assistance of neither board has been sought. The judge found that the strike had no basis as a labor dispute between the local and the plaintiff and that the employees of the latter were in no sense parties to the strike which has caused injury and hardship to the plaintiff. A decree followed enjoining the defendants, individually, and as officers or agents or as associated coagents of the local and the international union, from picketing in the vicinity of the plaintiff's premises and from representing to those entering or leaving them that a strike exists so long as they act or purport to act under the alleged strike of February 24, 1942.
The defendants contend that there was error in enjoining them from picketing and from representing that a strike exists and in having the decree run against the international union.
A combination of workmen, who have inflicted injuries upon a plaintiff's business for the purpose of compelling him to grant their demands is amenable under the common law of this Commonwealth for the perpetration of an actionable wrong, unless such conduct is justified on the ground that it resulted from the exercise by the defendants of a right equal or superior to the right of the plaintiff to be left alone. And the justification for the commission of acts that are ordinarily tortious in their nature and character must rest upon the fact that the defendants themselves sought to acquire a direct and immediate, rather than a remote or secondary, benefit from such acts. Whatever advantage might in general accrue to trade unionism by the acquisition of a closed shop arrangement with an employer, there is not sufficient relationship between the aim sought and the self interest of the strikers to justify the intentional infliction of harm on another. A strike for a closed shop has, accordingly, been held to be a strike for an unlawful purpose. Reynolds v. Davis, 198 Mass. 294 . Folsom v. Lewis, 208 Mass. 336 . Cornellier v. Haverhill Shoe Manufacturers' Association, 221 Mass. 554 . Baush Machine Tool Co. v. Hill, 231 Mass. 30 . Folsom Engraving Co. v. McNeil, 235 Mass. 269 . Quinton's Market, Inc. v. Patterson, 303 Mass. 315 . On the other hand, agreements voluntarily made between an employer and a union calling for a closed shop have always been recognized and enforced in this Commonwealth. Hoban v. Dempsey, 217 Mass. 166. Shinsky v. O'Neil, 232 Mass. 99 . Smith v. Bowen, 232 Mass. 106 . Goyette v. C. V. Watson Co. 245 Mass. 577 . A. T. Stearns Lumber Co. v. Howlett, 260 Mass. 45 , 61, 65. Walter v. McCarvel, 309 Mass. 260 .
Picketing by strikers has been authorized by a statute in this Commonwealth for more than a quarter of a century. General Laws (Ter. Ed.) c. 149, Section 24, St. 1933, c. 272, provides that one may attend, "in the course of a lawful trade dispute, at any place where such person or persons may lawfully be, for the purpose of peacefully obtaining or communicating information or of so persuading or attempting to persuade." This statute has always been interpreted as applying only to a lawful strike. Martineau v. Foley, 231 Mass. 220. United Shoe Machinery Corp. v. Fitzgerald, 237 Mass. 537 . Rice, Barton & Fales Machine & Iron Foundry Co. v. Willard, 242 Mass. 566 . Samuel Hertzig Corp. v. Gibbs, 295 Mass. 229 .
A strike for a closed shop has not become legal and the lawful limits of picketing have not been extended by St. 1935, c. 407, which in its present form appears as G. L. (Ter. Ed.) c. 149, Sections 20B, 20C; c. 214, Sections 1, 9, 9A; c. 220, Sections 13A, 13B. That statute, with an exception not now material, deals entirely with questions of jurisdiction, the conditions upon which injunctions may be issued in labor disputes, and the procedure to be followed in reference to injunctions and contempts in this class of cases. It leaves unimpaired the distinction heretofore existing between legal and illegal strikes. It leaves untouched the somewhat limited field of the statute governing picketing. It neither restricts nor broadens the boundaries of permissible picketing. Picketing which was illegal prior to this statute still continues as such. In a word, the statute did not change the substantive law as to either the legality of a strike or the lawfulness of picketing. Simon v. Schwachman, 301 Mass. 573. Quinton's Market, Inc. v. Patterson, 303 Mass. 315 . Remington Rand, Inc. v. Crofoot, 279 N.Y. 635. Opera on Tour, Inc. v. Weber, 285 N.Y. 348. Starr v. Laundry & Dry Cleaning Workers' Local Union No. 101, 155 Ore. 634. Safeway Stores, Inc. v. Retail Clerks' Union, Local No. 148, 184 Wash. 322.
Although none of the plaintiff's employees was a member of the local when the vote to strike was taken, one had become a member the day before the...
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