Havens v. Local 199 Detroit Motion Picture Projectionists, Intern. Alliance, Theatrical Stage Employees & Moving Picture Mach. Operators of U.S. and Canada

• Decision Date: 29 December 1953
• Docket Number: No. 20,20
• Citation: 338 Mich. 418,61 N.W.2d 790
• Parties: HAVENS v. LOCAL 199 DETROIT MOTION PICTURE PROJECTIONISTS, INTERNATIONAL ALLIANCE, THEATRICAL STAGE EMPLOYEES & MOVING PICTURE MACHINE OPERATORS OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA et al.
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court

Page 790

61 N.W.2d 790

338 Mich. 418

HAVENS v. LOCAL 199 DETROIT MOTION PICTURE PROJECTIONISTS,

INTERNATIONAL ALLIANCE, THEATRICAL STAGE EMPLOYEES

& MOVING PICTURE MACHINE OPERATORS OF

THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA et al.

No. 20.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

Dec. 29, 1953

Travis & Warren, Detroit, for appellant.

Leonard Simons, Detroit, for appellees. Chris M. Youngjohn, Detroit, of counsel.

Before the Entire Bench.

ADAMS, Justice.

Louis G. Havens, plaintiff and appellant, is a moving picture projectionist and a member of Local No. 738 (Allegan) of the International Alliance, Theatrical Stage Employees and Moving Picture Machine Operators of the United States and Canada. For several years he was employed in Detroit which is within the jurisdiction of Local 199 of the International Alliance, one of the defendants and appellees, (hereinafter referred to as the local). Defendants Kinsora, Kennedy, Sullivan and Ruben are officers of the local.

The local has a contract with substantially all of the theaters in the Detroit area to supply them exclusively with moving picture projectionists. The contract also establishes hours of employment and pay rates. By assignment of the local, the plaintiff was employed by Wade E. Allen, defendant, owner and operator of the Fine Arts Theatre, until December, 1948, when he was removed from his job by the local. This action in chancery was brought to restrain the defendants from interfering with plaintiff's employment and for damages for loss of earnings. After hearing, the trial court concluded that the plaintiff had failed to prove a cause of action and dismissed the bill of complaint. Plaintiff appeals.

Plaintiff was formerly a resident of Allegan, Michigan, and worked in a theater in that city. While so employed, he helped to organize Local 738 of the International Alliance, Theatrical Stage Employees and Moving Picture Machine Operators of the United States and Canada, and became a member of that local. Later he was temporarily employed in Battle Creek and from there went to the city of Detroit in the year 1942 where he sought employment through Local 199.

By requirement of the International Alliance, the local gave priority in available employment to its members. If all members had employment, members of other locals of the International Alliance were assigned to openings and, finally, if neither members nor members of other locals were available, then jobs could be assigned to non-members. Under this provision of the International Alliance constitution, plaintiff was assigned jobs from time to time in a number of theaters in the Detroit area. He estimates that he worked at more than 180 theaters during the six years following his arrival in Detroit. During that period he paid dues to his local union in Allegan and work assessments to Local 199 at the same rate required of members.

In 1945 he obtained a job at the Fine Arts Theatre in Detroit and continued to work there without interruption until the early part of December, 1948. His earnings were good and it is conceded that his services were in every respect satisfactory to his employer.

In the meantime and during the year 1945, the plaintiff made application for membership in the Detroit local and deposited the required membership fee. The local took no action on his application and, becoming impatient, plaintiff wrote to the president of the International Alliance complaining of the local's failure to act. He requested, however, that the letter be kept confidential and for that reason nothing came of the letter. Later he contacted reporters of two Detroit newspapers, suggested to them that the local was not being properly administered, and urged them to investigate. Apparently the matter was of little interest to the newspapers and it was given no publicity.

On October 25, 1948, he again wrote to the president of the International Alliance complaining of the local's delay in acting on his application for membership. In the letter he said that he was one of a sizeable group who had been denied membership in the organization, and concluded with this statement:

'We do not want to turn to other sources to gain our rights but will in case you cannot see fit to correct this situation.'

A copy of his letter was transmitted to the local and shortly thereafter the plaintiff was called to appear before an investigating committee that had been directed to act on his application for membership. The plaintiff met with the committee and was questioned briefly with reference to the letter written to the president of the International Alliance. After the meeting the committee recommended that his application be rejected, having in mind, as they later testified, the letter written by the plaintiff to the International Alliance president, his efforts to have the union investigated by the local newspapers, and a letter written by the plaintiff in 1942 to an officer of the International Alliance accusing another official of improper conduct. The recommendation of the investigating committee was promptly presented to a meeting of the local attended by 93 members and upon motion, plaintiff's application was unanimously rejected.

Following the rejection of the application, a motion was adopted to request Local 738 to recall the plaintiff from the jurisdiction of Local 199. Approximately a week later by direction of the local, plaintiff was removed from his employment at the Fine Arts Theatre and a member of Local 199 replaced him as projectionist. Two days after that, plaintiff was officially advised by letter of the rejection of his application and his membership fee deposit and working card were returned to him. A working card is issued to a member of a local and must be deposited with the local that has jurisdiction in the area where the member is then working. Without the card in the files of the local union, plaintiff was not eligible for employment. The request to Local 738 that the plaintiff be withdrawn from the jurisdiction of the Detroit local was forwarded to Allegan but that local took no action.

Plaintiff was offered employment within the jurisdiction of his own local in Allegan. He did not accept it. Neither did he ask for further employment as a projectionist in the Detroit area but almost immediately instituted this suit to test the right of the local to remove him from employment at the Fine Arts Theatre. In his bill of complaint he asked that the local and its officers be restrained from denying to him the rights and privileges of members of the local and from interfering with his employment at the Fine Arts Theatre. He further asked that the owner of the Fine Arts Theatre be restrained from denying him employment and that the agreement between the Theatre and the local be declared null and void. In addition, he asked for money damages for the loss sustained through his removal from employment.

It is the plaintiff's principal contention that the local is a closed membership union in that it arbitrarily refuses to admit new members and that when it entered into an agreement with the theaters in the Detroit area that they would employ as projectionists only those persons assigned by the local, it took from plaintiff and others in a like position the right to follow their chosen occupation. In other words, plaintiff says that the defendant local has taken from him the privilege of employment in Detroit by combining a closed shop with a closed union.

It is conceded by the parties that a closed shop for moving picture projectionists does exist in the Detroit area. With some 202 theaters in operation as of the time of trial, only three theaters were not under contract with the local, and the record indicates that those three were probably owner-operated. We think it undisputed, therefore, that no one can obtain employment in the Detroit area as a moving picture projectionist unless he is assigned to that work by the local.

A person's employment or occupation is a property right which is entitled to protection, Baldwin v. Escanaba Liquor Dealers' Association, 165 Mich. 98, 130 N.W. 214, and 'the right to work for a living in the common occupations of the community is of the very essence of the personal freedom and opportunity that it was the purpose of the (Fourteenth) Amendment to secure.' Truax v. Raich, 239 U.S. 33, 36 S.Ct. 7, 10, 60 L.Ed. 131.

If the local has arbitrarily taken from the plaintiff his right to employment throught the implement of a closed union, then it has taken from the plaintiff one of his assured and fundamental rights as a citizen.

'If the union can force a closed shop upon all, or almost all, of the employers of an industry or area, the right to employment will depend upon union membership; and if union membership be refused the workman, he is more totally excluded from the opportunity to labor than he was before union recognition. This problem has been perceived many times by our courts.' Carroll v. Local No. 269, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, 133 N.J.Eq. 144, 31 A.2d 223, 225.

It becomes necessary, therefore, to determine whether or not the defendant local is a closed union; a closed union being one which has no reasonable standards or qualifications for membership and which, without cause, arbitrarily denies admission to anyone distasteful to the membership.

The constitution and by-laws of the defendant local set forth the qualifications of a member. He must be a male person at least 21 years of age who has been employed as a moving picture projectionist for not less than two years. The constitution of the International Alliance, in addition, requires that each member be a citizen of the United States or Canada and not affiliated with any organization having for its aim or purpose the overthrow of government by force. Upon application for admission to the union, the applicant must answer correctly at least 75% of the questions put to him touching...