Grimes v. Durnin

• Decision Date: 07 June 1921
• Citation: 114 A. 273
• Parties: GRIMES et al. v. DURNIN et al.
• Court: New Hampshire Supreme Court

114 A. 273

GRIMES et al.

v. DURNIN et al.

Supreme Court of New Hampshire. Hillsborough.

June 7, 1921.

Transferred from Superior Court, Hillsborough County; Kivel, Judge.

Petition by Daniel D. Grimes and others against Thomas J. Durnin and others for injunction to restrain defendants from patroling and picketing in front of plaintiffs' restaurants and otherwise committing unlawful acts near it, wherein temporary injunction issued against defendants. Motion to dissolve was denied, and plaintiffs' motion that the injunction be made permanent granted, and defendants except. On transfer from the superior court. Exceptions overruled.

Taggart, Tuttle, Wyman & Starr and L. E. Wyman, all of Manchester, for plaintiffs.

Doyle & Doyle, of Nashua, and Robert W. Upton, of Concord, for defendants.

PLUMMER J. The plaintiffs were proprietors of two restaurants in Manchester of the cafeteria type, and were conducting a successful business. The defendant Durnin was the international representative of the Hotel and Restaurant Employees' Union, and the other defendants were the Hotel and Restaurant Employees' Local No. 407 and members thereof. Durnin and the president of Local No. 407 requested the plaintiffs to sign an agreement containing a working schedule for all their employees and a rate for wages, and also providing that "All nonunion employees must become members of this local within fourteen days after employed." The plaintiffs refused to sign the agreement; whereupon a strike was declared, and picketing was inaugurated in front of the plaintiffs' restaurants. The picketers called out in a loud voice, "Strike on at Grimes' Lunch; unfair to organized labor; this restaurant on strike." These announcements were constantly repealed in front of the restaurants for several days until a temporary injunction was served upon the defendants. The picketing reduced the patronage of one of the restaurants more than one-half, and the other to about one-third.

The court found that, while it was claimed at the hearing by the defendants that their sole purpose was to benefit the conditions as to hours and wages of the plaintiffs' employees, yet from their attitude they were endeavoring to prevent not only members of organized labor, but others, from patronizing the plaintiffs' restaurants, and their real intention was "to win the strike regardless of the effect upon the plaintiffs' business"; and, if the injunction had not been served, they would have continued the strike until the plaintiffs signed the agreement. Upon these and other facts...