Howard Gault Co. v. Texas Rural Legal Aid, Inc.
| Decision Date | 07 August 1985 |
| Docket Number | CA-2-80-129.,Civ. A. No. CA-2-80-127 |
| Citation | 615 F. Supp. 916 |
| Parties | HOWARD GAULT COMPANY, Barrett-Fisher Company, E.C. Reinauer & Sons, Inc., Griffin and Brand Sales Agency, Inc., T.J. Power and Company, Tri-Frye Brand, La Mantia-Cullum-Collier and Company of Dimmitt, Deck Produce Company, Dimco Industries, Inc., Smith Potato, Inc., Barrett Produce Company, Colville and Wilson, Inc., H & S Produce Company, Walker Brothers Produce Company, Inc., Boozer Produce Company, High Plains Vegetable Growers and Shippers Council, Inc., and Texas Citrus and Vegetable Growers and Shippers, Inc., Counter-Defendants, v. TEXAS RURAL LEGAL AID, INC., Texas Farm Workers Union, Edward J. Tuddenham, Inez Flores, Jesus Moya and S.T. Rendon, Counter-Plaintiffs. TEXAS FARM WORKERS UNION, Texas Rural Legal Aid, Inez Flores, and Delia Gamez Prince, Plaintiffs, v. Travis McPHERSON, Colonel James B. Adams, the Texas Department of Public Safety, Roland Saul, Jerry Smith, Don Davis, Granvill Martin, Charles Tue, Bobby Henderson and Jim Mattox, Attorney General of the State of Texas, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Texas |
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Edward B. Cloutman, III, Mullinax, Wells, Baab & Cloutman, Dallas, Tex., for Texas Rural Legal Aid.
William H. Beardall and Edward J. Tuddenham, Texas Rural Legal Aid, Hereford, Tex., for Texas Farm Workers Union, Moya, and Prince.
William O. Goodman, Asst. Atty. Gen., Austin, Tex., for State of Tex.
A.B. Hankins, Gibson, Ochsner & Adkins, Amarillo, Tex., for Howard Gault Co., et al.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. Introduction .................................... 921
II. Jurisdiction .................................... 922
III. Factual Background .............................. 922
A. June 24, 1980 — The Picketing Begins ......... 922
B. Texas Rural Legal Aid ........................ 923
C. Deaf Smith County Sheriff Travis McPherson ... 923
1. During the Strike ......................... 923
2. Outside the Strike Period ................. 924
D. The Temporary Restraining Order .............. 926
IV. Procedural History of the Litigation ............ 928
A. No. 2-80-127: The TRO and the Counterclaim
for Violation of Civil Rights ................ 928
B. No. 2-80-129: Constitutionality of the Texas
Picketing Statutes ........................... 929
C. The Consolidated Actions ..................... 930
V. Moya's Claims ................................... 930
A. § 1983 ....................................... 930
1. Color of State Law ........................ 930
2. Deprivation of Rights ..................... 933
(a) 1st Amendment, Substantive ............ 933
(b) 1st Amendment, Procedural ............. 935
(c) 6th Amendment ......................... 936
(d) Legal Services Corporation Act ........ 936
(e) Malicious Prosecution ................. 938
B. § 1985 ....................................... 938
VI. Immunity ........................................ 939
VII. Damages ......................................... 940
VIII. Recovery Against the TRO Bond ................... 941
A. Liability .................................... 941
B. Damages ...................................... 942
IX. Historical Background to the Constitutional
Challenges in No. 2-80-129: Of Medrano v
Allee .......................................... 942
X. Standing ........................................ 944
XI. The Merits of the Constitutional Challenges ..... 945
A. Article 5154d, § 1(1) ........................ 945
B. Article 5154d, § 1(2) ........................ 947
C. Article 5154d, § 2 ........................... 947
D. Article 5154d, § 3 ........................... 950
E. Article 5154f ................................ 953
F. Article 5154g, § 2 ........................... 954
XII. Summary of Holdings ............................. 957
In the summer of 1980, the Texas Farm Workers Union ("TFWU") attempted to organize onion harvest and packing shed workers in the Hereford, Deaf Smith County, Texas area. The TFWU picketed the onion fields and packing sheds of several growers.
Seventeen growers, packers, and trade associations, determined to stop the picketing activities, filed suit in state district court against the union, its organizers and its attorneys. They alleged multiple violations of Texas picketing statutes and obtained an ex parte temporary restraining order which allegedly devastated the union's organizing efforts. The state suit was removed to federal court (No. 2-80-127), civil rights counterclaims filed, and an original action seeking declaratory and injunctive relief regarding the constitutionality of the picketing statutes was also filed (No. 2-80-129). The growers, packers, and trade associations eventually voluntarily dismissed their claims, leaving only the civil rights counterclaims and the constitutional challenges to be tried.
The consolidated actions were tried to the Court. This Opinion constitutes the Court's Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law. It first discusses, at some length, the factual context of the onion field strike and then considers, in turn, the civil rights claims and the constitutional challenges to the Texas picketing statutes.
This Court has jurisdiction over No. 2-80-127 and No. 2-80-129 under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331 and 1343(a).
Onions in the Hereford area are harvested for 6-8 weeks each year beginning in mid- to late-June. A tractor with a blade lifts the onions out of the ground and leaves them lying on the surface. Fieldworkers then clip the tops and bottoms and sack the onions for curing in the field. If onions are left lying in the sun for more than a day or two, they scald and become worthless.
In June of 1980, Jesus Moya ("Moya") a paid farm worker organizer for the TFWU, began organizing onion field and packing shed workers around Hereford, Texas. Moya had been a union organizer since 1978 and had participated in TFWU organizing campaigns in the lower Rio Grande Valley.
The TFWU arrived in Hereford knowing that a harvest season strike would threaten area onion growers with rotting onions in the fields and large monetary losses. The TFWU hoped the growers would agree to the workers' demands for higher wages and better working conditions, such as drinking water and toilets in the fields.
Preparation for the 1980 organizational campaign had begun many months earlier. Moya himself had made several trips to the area in an effort to familiarize himself with the people and the surrounding farms.
At trial, Moya stated that the primary objectives of his 1980 organizational efforts in Hereford were to obtain representation for migrant workers by the TFWU and to obtain higher wages for farm workers in the area. To achieve these objectives, Moya planned to use the following methods: (1) picket lines, marches, demonstrations, protests, hunger strikes, and strikes at the points of production, i.e., the onion fields; (2) education of workers about their basic legal rights concerning minimum wages and farm labor contractors; and (3) organization of a class of farm workers to lobby for workers' compensation, collective bargaining rights, pesticide control laws, and other civil rights legislation.
In Moya's words,
In the early morning hours of June 24, 1980, Moya, Roy Hernandez and Delia Gamez Prince — two other TFWU organizers — set up the first picket line at a Howard Gault Company ("Gault") onion field. The day before, Moya had spoken with several workers from the Gault fields and they had told him that the harvest had begun. Moya selected Gault because he had heard that the field workers were not being paid the minimum wage — then $3.10 per hour — and that they had no drinking water or toilet facilities in the fields. Moya instructed his volunteers to man a picket line on June 24, 1980, early in the morning, alongside the public road close to the field being harvested.
With his picket line in place, Moya instructed his volunteers to talk to the workers as they arrived for work in the field and to hand out leaflets.
The picketers remained on the public road that paralleled the field. They did not attempt to block the field's entrances, nor did they attempt physically to prevent workers from entering the field to work.
The picket line that day was successful. Few workers went into the Gault field. Many workers joined the picket line bordering the Gault onion field. Activity along the picket line was generally peaceful. The workers carried flags or signs, and discussed their demands among themselves.
The picketing at the Gault onion field continued for the rest of that week. Support for Moya's efforts to organize the workers grew at a rapid pace. Pickets were eventually set up at the Griffin & Brand fields as well as various packing sheds in the area.
Neither Moya nor his supporters on the picket line entered the fields to talk to workers. Instead, they shouted to the workers or used a loudspeaker. They urged the workers to come out of the fields and shouted "huelga" — strike — and Although some picketers also reviled and denounced the workers who remained in the fields, no threats were made against either the growers or the...
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