Graybar Elec. Co. v. Automotive, Petroleum & Allied Industries Emp. Union, Local 618

• Decision Date: 13 February 1956
• Docket Number: No. 44192,44192
• Citation: 365 Mo. 753,287 S.W.2d 794
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court
• Parties: , 37 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2556, 29 Lab.Cas. P 69,758 GRAYBAR ELECTRIC COMPANY, Inc., Appellant, v. AUTOMOTIVE, PETROLEUM & ALLIED INDUSTRIES EMPLOYEES UNION, LOCAL 618, et al., Respondents.

Page 794

287 S.W.2d 794

365 Mo. 753, 37 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2556,

29 Lab.Cas. P 69,758

GRAYBAR ELECTRIC COMPANY, Inc., Appellant, v. AUTOMOTIVE, PETROLEUM & ALLIED INDUSTRIES EMPLOYEES UNION LOCAL 618, et al., Respondents.

No. 44192.

Supreme Court of Missouri, En Banc.

Feb. 13, 1956.

Rehearing Denied March 12, 1956.

David F. Crossen, Charles H. Spoehrer, Victor B. Harris, St. Louis, for appellant.

Harry H. Craig, Norman W. Armbruster, St. Louis, Wiley, Craig, Armbruster, Schmidt & Wilburn, St. Louis, of counsel, for respondents.

Ollingsworth, Judge.

Plaintiff has appealed from a judgment of the Circuit Court of the City of St. Louis dismissing its action against Automotive, Petroleum & Allied Industries Employees Union, Local 618, and its officials to enjoin alleged unlawful picketing of plaintiff's business premises and for compensatory and exemplary damages in the aggregate sum of $550,000.

Plaintiff is a wholesale distributor of electrical products. It is engaged in interstate commerce and is subject to the provisions of the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, 29 U.S.C.A. Sec. 141 et seq. Its plant is located at 2642 Washington Avenue, St. Louis, where an office force of 120 persons and a warehouse force of 15 persons are regularly employed. Defendant union, Local 618, is an unincorporated affiliate of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America, A. F. of L. The individual defendants are its principal officers and are made parties both in their official capacities and as individuals being sufficiently representative of the class of which they are members. No employee of plaintiff is a member of Local 618 and no claim is made that any of them ever has been or has expressed any desire to be a member thereof.

After unsuccessful attempts to organize plaintiff's warehousemen, defendants began picketing plaintiff's premises on May 14, 1952. Plaintiff thereupon petitioned the National Labor Relations Board for investigation and certification of representatives and was advised that no claim of representation was made by the union and that the Board and had no jurisdiction to determine any question of representation.

Prior to June 12, 1952, plaintiff had received no communication whatever from defendants. On that date, in response to written inquiry from plaintiff, defendant union, by letter advised plaintiff as follows:

'This labor organization has established a picket line at the premises of your company and we desire to advise you of the objects and purposes for which such picketing is being conducted and of our attitude and policy with respect to various corollary matters that may arise in the course thereof.

'According to information available to us, a majority of the employees of your concern are not members of this labor organization. We are interested in persuading those employees, if possible, and by the use of lawful means only, to apply for membership in our Local Union.

'In connection with the efforts of our Union to persuade such employees to make application for membership, we have found that public opinion plays a very important role. That is to say, if the employees of an employer come to the conclusion that the public (constituting their customers) prefers to patronize them as union members, such employees more readily respond to the request of a Union to become members. * * *

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'* * * This Union is not making any demand at this time upon your Company or its management to execute or agree to any contract with our Union covering any of your said employees. * * *'

This suit was brought on June 18, 1952, on which date the trial court issued a restraining order against further picketing of plaintiff's premises and an order on defendants to show cause why a temporary injunction should not be issued. Plaintiff's amended petition alleged, as grounds for temporary and, upon final hearing, Permanent injunction: That no labor dispute existed between plaintiff and the union or any of plaintiff's employees; that defendants 'are maintaining continuous picketing of plaintiff's premises for the purpose of preventing deliveries to and from said premises so that plaintiff will be coerced into recognizing said Local 618 as a representative of its employees, in violation of said Labor Management Relations Act and of Section 29, Article I, of the Constitution of the State of Missouri'; that the pickets 'are stopping all persons who approach plaintiff's premises and requesting them not to deal with plaintiff; are seeking to and in fact succeeding in stopping deliveries to plaintiff; are advising plaintiff's customers * * * and trucking companies * * * that no deliveries should be made because of the aforesaid picketing'; and that unless restrained said picketing will cause plaintiff irreparable loss and now has reduced plaintiff's business to the extent of $116,000.

The joint answer of defendants denied the aforesaid allegations and affirmatively alleged, among other things: that the picketing was for the lawful purpose of informing the public that plaintiff's employees were non-union, thereby to persuade the general public to patronize similar business enterprises that were union, and thereby to persuade plaintiff's employees of the desirability of unionism; that to deny defendants the right to picket plaintiff's premises would deny them the right of free speech in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States and Section 8 of Article I of the Constitution of Missouri, V.A.M.S. and the right to engage in organizational activities in violation of Article I, Section 29, of said Constitution of Missouri.

Defendants' joint answer further affirmatively alleged that the facts pleaded by plaintiff, if true, constitute a violation of Sections 157 and 158(a)(1) and (3) of the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947; that Section 160 of said Act provides the means whereby the acts alleged may be restrained in the Federal Courts and that the means so provided in the Act are exclusive; that Congress, by said Act, preempted the field of such disputes and that the courts of Missouri are without jurisdiction in the premises.

Upon trial of the case, it was agreed that damage counts pleaded in both the petition and answer would be deferred until final disposition of the issue of plaintiff's right to injunctive relief.

Plaintiff's evidence will be briefly stated. (Italicized language appearing throughout this opinion indicates our emphasis unless otherwise specified.)

The picketing consisted of a single picket walking along the sidewalk in front of the motor vehicle entrance to plaintiff's warehouse and carrying an umbrella with the word 'Teamsters' in capital letters and the word 'Non-Union' in larger letters; one umbrella also had thereon the additional words, 'This company does not employ members of Teamsters Local 618'; another the additional words, 'Not under contract with Teamsters Local 618'. The picketing was at all times entirely peaceful.

Plaintiff leases three trucks from Lueking Transfer Company which bear plaintiff's name but are operated by Lueking employees who work for plaintiff on a permanent basis. Said employees are members of Local 600, another affilicate of Teamsters union. These trucks are used by plaintiff exclusively for city deliveries. After the picketing started, the Lueking drivers refused to cross the picket line. This was likewise true as to other truck drivers with incoming and outgoing freight. At first, the picketing began about 7:30 a.m. and continued to about 5:30 p.m. In order to avoid the picket line, the Lueking drivers, at the direction of plaintiff, would arrive at 6:00 a.m., load their trucks and return after the picket went off duty. Latter the picketing hours were lengthened and arrivals and departures of trucks were changed accordingly. This resulted in the picketing going on an around-the-clock basis. Thereafter no deliveries were made to or from plaintiff's premises by the regular truckers or Lueking drivers. The employees of some fifty of the trucking companies that customarily made deliveries to and for plaintiff, although advised that there was no strike at plaintiff's premises and no labor dispute of any kind with its employees, refused to make deliveries because of the picketing. Numberous notices given to plaintiff by such trucking companies as to failure to make deliveries to plaintiff of merchandise in their possession and consigned to plaintiff were received in evidence. These notices recited, in substance, that the refusals to deliver were due to a 'strike' at plaintiff's place of business. One of the pickets at plaintiff's premises stated: 'I turned back twelve trucks this morning.' On another occasion one of the pickets was heard to say to a driver: 'Can't you see we are picketing this place? You are not supposed to go in there.'

By using a warehouse operated by Lueking and some of plaintiff's own warehouse employees, plaintiff was enabled to maintain its city deliveries to a limited extent. But such deliveries were always late, which resulted in extensive cancellations of orders, amounting to a reduction in plaintiff's business during the first fifteen days of picketing in the sum of $58,000. Defendants agreed that plaintiff's losses were sufficient to justify injunctive relief if it was otherwise entitled to it.

At the close of plaintiff's evidence in chief, defendants orally moved for a dismissal of the petition, 'in the nature of an oral motion for a directed verdict', which motion the court took under advisement, it being understood that if the court denied the motion defendants thereafter would present their evidence.

On June 23, 1953, the parties, in open court, stipulated:

'1. That subsequent to the close of plaintiff's case, and on December 9, 1952, plaintiff filed unfair labor practice charges against defendants with the Fourteenth...