Greenfield v. Central Labor Council of Portland and Vicinity

• Decision Date: 31 May 1922
• Citation: 104 Or. 236,207 P. 168
• Parties: GREENFIELD v. CENTRAL LABOR COUNCIL OF PORTLAND AND VICINITY ET AL.
• Court: Oregon Supreme Court

207 P. 168

104 Or. 236

GREENFIELD v. CENTRAL LABOR COUNCIL OF PORTLAND AND VICINITY ET AL.

Supreme Court of Oregon

May 31, 1922

In Banc.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Multnomah County; John McCourt, Judge.

On rehearing. Decree affirmed.

Former opinion (192 P. 783) modified.

This is a suit in equity, involving a controversy with union labor. The plaintiff, Geo. L. Greenfield, sought, and was decreed protection by injunction. The plaintiff is a merchant of Portland, conducting two retail stores for the sale of boots shoes, and other footwear, his places of business being located at the northeast corner of Fourth and Alder streets and the northwest corner of Fourth and Morrison streets respectively.

The defendant Local Union No. 1257 of the Retail Clerks' International Protective Association is a trade union. Defendant John Doe Preston is the business agent of this union. Defendants L. C. Novak and J. D. Myall are its secretary and president respectively. Defendant Central Labor Council of Portland and Vicinity is a body of delegates appointed by, and representing, numerous labor unions and organizations, including the defendant Local Union No. 1257 and has authority conferred upon it by the several unions to aid, assist, promote, counsel, and advise such labor unions including the defendant Local Union No. 1257, in respect to the conduct and acts set forth in the pleadings.

The facts offered and received in evidence in the trial of the cause were brought before the court by the pleadings stipulations of counsel, and affidavits. From the evidence adduced upon the trial the court made its findings of fact, from which it deduced, as a conclusion of law, that the plaintiff was entitled to relief by the extraordinary process of injunction. Based thereon, the court made and entered the following decree:

"That said defendants, and each of them, their servants, agents, officers, employees, members, and attorneys, be, and they are hereby, enjoined and prohibited from in any wise interfering with or harassing or annoying or obstructing plaintiff in the conduct of his business, to wit, his retail shoe stores known as 'Greenfield's,' situated at the northwest corner of Fourth and Morrison streets, and 'Wright's Sample Shoe Shop,' situated at the northeast corner of Fourth and Alder streets, both in the city of Portland, Or., and from in any wise molesting, interfering with, intimidating, threatening, or harassing any employee or employees of plaintiff in said business, and from intimidating, harassing, annoying, interfering with, or obstructing any customer or customers, patron or patrons of plaintiff from entering into or departing from plaintiff's said places of business, and by any kind of violence, threats, or intimidation, inducing or seeking to induce any customer or customers, patron or patrons, or intending customers or patrons, to withhold or withdraw their patronage from plaintiff, or to refrain from entering108into plaintiff's said places of business, and further said defendants, and each of them, their agents, servants, employees, members and officers, are hereby prohibited and enjoined from in any wise or manner picketing the said places of business of plaintiff, save and except that it shall be lawful, and the defendants are hereby permitted to employ two pickets during the business hours of each day, and to station one of said pickets in front of each of plaintiff's said stores, and said pickets may be permitted to wear upon their person a sash inscribed with the words, 'Unfair to organized labor, Local Union 1257,' and said pickets are permitted to walk upon the outer edge of the sidewalk in front of plaintiff's said places of business, but said pickets are prohibited and enjoined from making any declaration or statements whatsoever concerning plaintiff or his said places of business, and said pickets are enjoined and prohibited from engaging in any argument or conversation of any kind with any person concerning the strike or boycott declared against plaintiff, or concerning the merits thereof, and said pickets are further enjoined and prohibited from making any demonstration of any kind whatsoever, or from taking any poses or making any gestures calculated or intended to divert or turn patrons or prospective customers from plaintiff's said places of business. * * *"

The plaintiff appeals from that part of the decree reading:

"Save and except that it shall be lawful, and the defendants are hereby permitted to employ two pickets during the business hours of each day, and to station one of said pickets in front of each of plaintiff's said stores, and said pickets may be permitted to wear upon their persons a sash inscribed with the words, 'Unfair to organized labor, Local Union 1257,' and said pickets are permitted to walk upon the outer edge of the sidewalk in front of plaintiff's said places of business"

--and asserts that all picketing is an unlawful invasion of a property right and constitutes a continuous trespass; second, that all picketing, whether peaceful or otherwise, is a means employed by men acting in concert and in furtherance of a conspiracy to do an unlawful act.

The defendants appeal, assigning error in finding of fact No. 7, wherein the court found:

"That the defendants had formed a plan or carried out by concert of action, or otherwise, a plan or purpose of intimidating and annoying the plaintiff or his employees, or to intimidate or annoy the customers about to enter into plaintiff's said places of business, or any of said customers, by means of pickets or otherwise.

"And, further, the court erred in * * * finding that many of plaintiff's customers were * * * prevented and intimidated from patronizing plaintiff's stores during * * * the time of said picketing, and that thereby the trade of plaintiff in his retail business was materially reduced, to his * * * irreparable loss and damage; and that said picketing as thus conducted by defendants obstructed the entrances to plaintiff's said places of business, and obstructed and interfered with the free and open access to plaintiff's said places of business by his patrons. * * *

"That the court erred in its conclusions of law that the picketing as conducted by defendants is unlawful * * * and in all that portion of the decree, except only wherein the court enjoined the defendants, and each of them, from, 'by any kind of violence, threats or intimidations, inducing, or seeking to induce, any customer or customers, patron or patrons, or intending customers or patrons, to withhold or withdraw their patronage from plaintiff, or to refrain from entering into plaintiff's said places of business."'

John W. Kaste, of Portland (Bauer, Greene & McCurtain, of Portland, on the brief), for plaintiff.

W. S. U'Ren, of Portland (A. M. Crawford and W. C. Campbell, both of Portland, on the brief), for defendants.

BROWN, J. (after stating the facts as above).

There is no serious conflict in the evidence concerning the material facts relating to the strike. There is, however, a dispute as to the manner in which the pickets addressed plaintiff's customers and others.

After careful consideration of the record, we adopt the findings of fact made by the trial court and set forth below as supported by the evidence. The facts so found and adopted are as follows:

In conducting his business as a retail dealer in boots and shoes, the plaintiff employed a number of clerks, all of whom were members of Local Union No. 1257 excepting four. About January 15, 1920, the defendants demanded that Greenfield, the plaintiff, require the four nonunion men in his employ to join Local Union No. 1257, and insisted that, if they should fail or refuse to become members of the Union, plaintiff should discharge them. This the plaintiff refused to do. Thereupon the defendants, for the purpose of coercing plaintiff to discharge his nonunion clerks, threatened him with a strike, including the picketing of his stores.

The plaintiff and defendant Local Union had previously entered into a contract set forth in defendant's further and separate answer which was violated by the plaintiff when he refused to compel his nonunion employees to join the union, or to discharge them from his employ. There was also a dispute between plaintiff and some of his employees concerning the payment of overtime provided for in that contract.

In carrying out their threats, the defendants entered into an agreement to be executed by concert of action, having for its purpose the injuring of the business of the plaintiff by preventing his customers from dealing with him. In order to influence persons from trading with plaintiff, it was agreed to annoy him, his clerks, as well as customers and prospective patrons, by means of pickets, who were to parade along the outer edge of the sidewalk in front of the entrances to his stores. This agreement was carried out. The pickets, wearing about their shoulders scarfs, with the words, "Unfair to organized labor, Local Union No. 1257," inscribed thereon in large letters, patrolled the sidewalk in front of plaintiff's stores, or took their stand in front of such stores, and, in a loud tone of voice, declared to the customers who were about to enter, or who did enter and depart from the stores:

"This place is unfair to organized labor; please do not patronize it; friends of union labor and all workmen will not patronize this place; all others should not."

While parading to and fro on the sidewalk in front of the plaintiff's stores, and while standing on the walk in front thereof, the pickets urged would-be customers to go elsewhere to purchase footwear, asserting that they could purchase such goods cheaper at union stores than at plaintiff's. To...