Hathaway Bakeries v. Labor Relations Com'n

• Decision Date: 29 April 1944
• Parties: HATHAWAY BAKERIES, INC. v. LABOR RELATIONS COMMISSION.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

316 Mass. 136

55 N.E.2d 254

HATHAWAY BAKERIES, INC. v. LABOR RELATIONS COMMISSION.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

April 29, 1944

February 7, 8 1944.

Present: FIELD, C.

J., LUMMUS, DOLAN & RONAN, JJ.

Labor and Labor Union. Prohibition, Writ of. Jurisdiction, Over the person Labor. Interstate Commerce.

A writ of prohibition is the appropriate remedy to restrain the State labor relations commission from acting outside its jurisdiction in entertaining a petition filed by a labor union seeking an investigation and certification pursuant to G. L. (Ter. Ed.) c. 150A, Section 5 (c), inserted by St 1938, c. 345, Section 2. The proprietor of an industrial establishment who, upon the filing with the

State labor relations commission of a petition by a labor union for an investigation and certification pursuant to G. L. (Ter. Ed.) c. 150A,

Section 5 (c), inserted by St. 1938, c. 345, Section 2, filed a motion to dismiss the petition for the sole purpose of challenging the jurisdiction of the commission and, after the motion was denied, continued to insist on such contention, did not thereby submit to the jurisdiction of the commission and was not precluded from maintaining a petition for a writ of prohibition against it.

The proprietor of an industrial establishment, without waiting until after action of the State labor relations commission under Section 6 of G. L.

(Ter. Ed.) c. 150A, inserted by St. 1938, c. 345, Section 2, in an alleged labor dispute, may seek a writ of prohibition to restrain the commission from acting outside its jurisdiction in entertaining a petition filed by a labor union for an investigation and certification pursuant to Section

5 (c).

The State labor relations commission has no jurisdiction to entertain a petition filed by a labor union for an investigation and certification under G. L. (Ter. Ed.) c. 150A, Section 5 (c), inserted by St. 1938, c.

345, Section 2, in a case in which the commission, after such a certification, would have no power by reason of Section 10 (b) to enforce further orders respecting unfair labor practices.

The proprietor of an industrial establishment, who secured two thirds of its materials for manufacture from outside the Commonwealth and distributed and sold substantial quantities of its manufactured products in other States, was engaged in interstate commerce, which would be affected by a cessation of work by district managers engaged in a supervisory capacity although none of them worked outside the

Commonwealth or supervised the work of other employees working outside the Commonwealth; and the State labor relations commission had no jurisdiction to entertain a petition by a labor union seeking an investigation and certification pursuant to G. L. (Ter. Ed.) c. 150A,

Section 5 (c), inserted by St. 1938, c. 345, Section 2, that it was the collective bargaining representative for such district managers.

PETITION, filed in the Supreme Judicial Court for the county of Suffolk on November 15, 1943, for a writ of prohibition.

The case was reserved and reported by Donahue, J.

C. B. Rugg, (J.

J. Phelan, Jr., with him,) for the petitioner.

L. E. Crowley, (H.

J. Allen with him,) for the respondent.

G. Holland, by leave of court, was permitted to argue and to submit a brief as amicus curiae.

RONAN, J. This is a petition for a writ of prohibition against the respondents who are all the members of the labor relations commission, to prevent them from hearing and determining a petition filed by a labor union seeking an investigation and certification by the commission, pursuant to G. L. (Ter. Ed.) c. 150A, Section 5 (c), inserted by St. 1938, c. 345, Section 2, that the union is the collective bargaining agency of a group of the petitioner's employees who are known as district managers and are engaged in a supervisory capacity. The case was reserved and reported to this court by a single justice, without decision, upon the pleadings and a statement of agreed facts.

The petitioner, hereinafter called the company, is a corporation having its principal place of business in Cambridge, in this Commonwealth, and is engaged in the manufacture, distribution and sale of bread and pastry. It operates establishments in seven States. The company maintains a manufacturing plant at Cambridge and another at Waltham. It conducts two stations, one at Salem and the other at Allston, where goods manufactured at the Cambridge and Waltham plants are distributed and sold.

The company for a long time has had a closed shop agreement with the union which covers all the driver-salesmen working out of the plants and stations mentioned, and also the transport drivers who transfer goods to and from these plants and stations. None of these driver-salesmen delivers or sells goods outside the Commonwealth, but the transport drivers regularly convey goods beyond the boundaries of this State. Other local unions, belonging to the same national body as does the union in question, have closed shop agreements with the company covering driver-salesmen operating from other establishments of the company located in other parts of the Commonwealth.

All the sales supervisors or district managers of the company connected with the Waltham, Salem and Allston establishments of the company, which are the only establishments mentioned in the petition for certification, became members of the union on May 1, 1943. The company refused to enter into any contract with the union with reference to them. The union filed a petition with the commission for certification of the union as the bargaining agent of these employees. At the hearing upon this petition the company filed a motion to dismiss on the ground that the commission had no jurisdiction to hear and decide the petition because the controversy affects the interstate commerce of the company and therefore is within the exclusive jurisdiction of the national labor relations board.

Besides the facts already mentioned, it also appeared from the agreed facts that a little over two thirds of the materials used by the company in its Cambridge and Waltham plants is purchased outside the Commonwealth and is shipped here. One tenth of the production of the Cambridge plant and thirty-six per cent of the production of the Waltham plant are sold outside the Commonwealth. The purchase of flour for all of the company's bakeries, including those located in other States, is effected at the company's central offices in Cambridge. None of the district managers at the three establishments mentioned in the union's petition works outside the State or supervises the work of any driver-salesmen having routes outside the State. The commission denied the motion to dismiss and continued the hearing to await the result of this petition for prohibition.

A writ of prohibition lies to restrain a court or quasi judicial body from acting outside its jurisdiction against one who has not submitted thereto and where there is no other adequate remedy. The writ does not lie to correct errors committed by a tribunal having jurisdiction over a subject matter and the parties, but its function is to prevent the court from proceeding to a decision when the court has no power to make any decision at all. If the tribunal possesses jurisdiction, then the writ cannot be invoked by one who has been harmed by a decision, whether that decision was right or wrong. The commission in performing the duties of the character and nature imposed upon it by law was acting in a quasi judicial capacity, Prusik v. Board of Appeal of Boston, 262 Mass. 451; Jaffarian v. Murphy, 280 Mass. 402; Dube v. Mayor of Fall River, 308 Mass. 12; Anderson v. Labor Relations Commission, 310 Mass. 590; Boott Mills v. Board of Conciliation & Arbitration, 311 Mass. 223; National Labor Relations Board v. J. S. Popper, Inc. 113 F.2d 602, 603; Thompson Products, Inc. v. National Labor Relations Board, 133 F.2d 637, 639, and a writ of prohibition is the appropriate remedy if the commission contemplates taking such action as would amount to a clear transgression of its jurisdiction. Tehan v. Justices of the Municipal Court of Boston, 191 Mass. 92 . Ashley v. Three Justices of the Superior Court, 228 Mass. 63 . Kevorkian v. Superior Court, 295 Mass. 355 .

The company cannot be held to have submitted to the jurisdiction by filing a motion to dismiss for the sole purpose of challenging the jurisdiction of the commission. The point was raised at the outset of the hearing and thereafter was always insisted upon by the company. It was apparently the only matter heard by the commission, which continued the hearing upon the union's petition after it denied the company's motion. It was the duty of the commission in the first instance to decide whether it possessed the power to entertain the union's petition for certification and, if it found it lacked the power, to dismiss the petition. Gray v. Dean, 136 Mass. 128 , 129. Corbett v. Boston & Maine Railroad, 219 Mass. 351 , 356. Carroll v. Berger, 255 Mass. 132 , 134. Henry L. Sawyer Co. v. Boyajian, 303 Mass. 311 , 313. Donnelly v. Montague, 305 Mass. 14 , 18. Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co. v. Schauffler, 303 U.S. 54, 57. Thompson Products, Inc. v. National Labor Relations Board, 133 F.2d 637, 640.

It is hardly possible that the commission would find that the union did not represent a majority of the district managers and so would dismiss the petition, since all of those employees of the company had become members of the union and were evidently such at the time the commission began hearings on the petition. It is contended, however, that the company could not be harmed by any decision that the commission might make upon the petition for certification and...