FEDERATED INDEPENDENT TEXAS UN. v. INTERNATIONAL ASS'N

• Decision Date: 07 August 1948
• Docket Number: 1458.,Civ. A. No. 1453
• Citation: 79 F. Supp. 554
• Parties: FEDERATED INDEPENDENT TEXAS UNIONS, LOCAL AIRCRAFT NO. 900, et al. v. INTERNATIONAL ASS'N OF MACHINISTS, LOCAL LODGE NO. 776 A. & B., et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Texas

79 F. Supp. 554

FEDERATED INDEPENDENT TEXAS UNIONS, LOCAL AIRCRAFT NO. 900, et al. v. INTERNATIONAL ASS'N OF MACHINISTS, LOCAL LODGE NO. 776 A. & B., et al.

Civ. A. Nos. 1453, 1458.

District Court, N. D. Texas, Fort Worth Division.

August 7, 1948.

Clark, Craik, Burns & Weddell, of Fort Worth, Tex., for plaintiffs.

McCraw, Campbell & Shaw of Dallas, Tex., for defendants Fort Worth Aircraft Locals 776 A and B, John F. Foster, Jr. and William Sodd.

Buck & Harris, of Fort Worth, Tex., for defendant Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corporation.

Daffan & Proctor, of Houston, Tex., for defendant International Ass'n of Machinists.

DOOLEY, District Judge.

The above cause was filed in the State court, but upon separate petitions of two defendants the suit was removed, and duplicate copies of the removal record have been filed in this Court. The Court is confronted at the outset with a query as to the jurisdictional sufficiency of the amount in controversy.

The plaintiffs, Federated Independent Texas Unions, Local Aircraft No. 900, and seven employees, members of the said Unions, for themselves and ostensibly others of like interest, sued the defendants, International Association of Machinists, Local Lodge No. 776 A. & B., two individuals and the employer corporation, Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corporation.

The plaintiffs' complaint, in explanatory background, alleged, so far as presently material, that the defendant Unions had been the bargaining representative under the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 151 et seq., for the seven plaintiff employees and several thousand other employees of the employer corporation, and as such negotiated a contract with the employer corporation covering, inter alia, the wages of said employees, but that same expired January 31, 1946, and from that date until May 23, 1946, no formal contract existed between the employer corporation and the employees in said unit, although for some time before said expiration date negotiations had been in progress, without avail, for a new contract; that on or about February 4, 1946, during the contract hiatus, the employer corporation voluntarily offered to pay its said employees a general increase of 15 per cent in wages, effective that date; that on or about February 23, 1946 the defendants, other than the employer corporation, called for a general strike at the plant of the employer corporation, but none of the plaintiff employees, nor any except a small percentage of all the employees, went out on said strike which proved to be a failure; that a strike settlement contract was finally signed between the employer corporation and the defendant Unions on or about May 23, 1946; that in the meantime the plaintiff employees and many like employees had remained at work for the employer corporation; that the employer corporation wanted to pay the plaintiff employees and other similar employees the increase in wages for the time of the interval between the announcement of such increase and the date of said settlement contract, but in the parleys before said strike settlement contract the defendant Unions, unmindful of their duty and in breach of trust and fidelity, stood against any such payment to the plaintiff employees, or other similar employees, being bent on sacrificing the rights and interests of the said employees, in a spirit of spite and reprisal, and, by threats and pressure against the employer corporation, kept such provision out of the contract.

The theory of the suit, between the plaintiffs and the employer corporation, is simply an action, under an express or implied contract, presumably unwritten, to recover an alleged debt in the amount of said increase in wage rates, said to exceed $200,000.00, accrued collectively to the plaintiff employees as well as the several thousand similar employees not parties to the suit, for work and labor done between February 4, 1946 and May 23, 1946, and, between the plaintiffs and the defendant Unions the suit is to recover judgment against the Unions, jointly with the employer corporation, for said wage debt, and also exemplary damages against the defendant Unions.

Any jurisdiction herein is contingent on diversity of citizenship and the requisite amount of more than $3,000.00 in controversy. The present inquiry pretermits any questions posed by the diversity angle, and will turn at once to the size of the amount in controversy. The seven employee plaintiffs not only sue for themselves,...