Gaw v. Higham, 13786.
| Decision Date | 21 May 1959 |
| Docket Number | No. 13786.,13786. |
| Citation | 267 F.2d 355 |
| Parties | William J. GAW, Joseph Sammartino and Joseph L. Carelly, Appellants, v. Robert HIGHAM, Harry Kaufman, Abraham Schwartz, Frank Zangara, James R. Hoffa and John English, Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit |
John H. Ranz, of Manchester, Bennett, Powers & Ullman, Youngstown, Ohio, for appellants.
Warren M. Briggs, Cleveland, Ohio, and Robert C. Knee, Dayton, Ohio, for appellees.
Before McALLISTER and MILLER, Circuit Judges, and CHOATE, District Judge.
In October, 1958, an election of officers and trustees of Local 377 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America was about to be held in Youngstown, Ohio. Appellants, William J. Gaw, Joseph Sammartino and Joseph L. Carelly, had been nominated for office, when appellees, Higham, Kaufman, Schwartz and Zangara, incumbent officers and trustees, filed a complaint alleging that Gaw, Sammartino and Carelly were not eligible for election to any office in the Local, and asking for a declaratory judgment determining their rights and legal relations in accordance with the pertinent provisions of the Constitution of the International. The complaint also named as defendants, James R. Hoffa, the president, John English, the secretary-treasurer, and John Rohrich, a trustee, of the International, as well as three Monitors of the International, theretofore appointed by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. Appellees set forth in their complaint that the action involved the interpretation of the Constitution of the International with respect to the eligibility of members as officers; that an amendment of the Constitution of the International, adopted in 1957, required that all members, paying dues to local unions, must pay them on or before the first business day of the current month, in advance, and that where, as in the case of Local 377, membership dues were checked off by the employer pursuant to properly executed check-off authorization, it should be the obligation of members to make one payment of one month's dues, in advance, to insure their good standing; that to be eligible for election to any office of a local union, a member must be in continuous good standing for a period of two years, prior to nomination. Appellees further set forth in their complaint, asking for a declaratory judgment, that none of the three defendants — who are the appellants in this case — had paid their dues in advance as of the first day of the month, as required by the recently amended Constitution; that the above mentioned Monitors had held that reasonable notice was not given to appellants of the constitutional amendment providing for advance payment of dues, and that, in fact, they had no such notice; that the Monitors had also determined that it would be unconscionable to hold appellants ineligible for office on the ground that they had not paid such dues in advance and that the election, accordingly, should proceed with the names of appellants on the ballots as candidates for office in the Local. Appellants then asked that the declaratory judgment prayed for, fix and determine the rights, liabilities, duties, responsibilities and legal relations of the parties thereto, at the same time for an injunction enjoining and restraining the defendants named in the complaint, or any of them, from proceeding with the election of officers of Local 377. After the filing of an amended complaint, based on diversity of citizenship, in which the plaintiffs set forth that appellees Gaw, Sammartino and Carelly were proper, but not...
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