Interlake Steamship Co. v. Marine Engineers Ben. Ass'n Minn.

• Decision Date: 30 March 1961
• Docket Number: No. 38110,38110
• Citation: 108 N.W.2d 627,260 Minn. 1
• Parties: INTERLAKE STEAMSHIP COMPANY and Pickands-Mather & Company, Respondents. v. MARINE ENGINEERS BENEFICIAL ASSOCIATION et al., Appellants.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

Page 627

108 N.W.2d 627

260 Minn. 1

INTERLAKE STEAMSHIP COMPANY and Pickands-Mather & Company Respondents. v. MARINE ENGINEERS BENEFICIAL ASSOCIATION et al., Appellants.

No. 38110.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

March 30, 1961.

Syllabus by the Court

1. Exclusion of supervisory employees from Federal Labor Management Relations Act of 1947 left field open for state regulation, and state courts have jurisdiction, under proper facts, to enjoin labor organization from committing an act unlawful under state labor law.

2. In determining purpose of picketing in a labor case, a trial court may draw reasonable inferences from evidence the same as in any other field of litigation.

3. Where the purpose of picketing is to coerce or compel an employer to commit an unlawful act, the picketing itself becomes unlawful.

4. Minnesota Anti-Injunction Act, Minn.St. c. 185, does not prohibit the issuance of an injunction to restrain the commission of an unlawful act.

Lewis, Hammer, Heaney, Weyl & Halverson, Duluth, Lee Pressman, New York City, for appellants.

Nye, Sullivan, McMillan, Hanft & Hastings, Duluth, Charles D. Johnson, Baker Hostetler & Patterson, Cleveland, Ohio, for respondent.

KNUTSON, Justice.

This is an appeal from an order of the district court granting a permanent injunction restraining defendants from picketing under the facts of this case.

Plaintiffs, Interlake Steamship Company and Pickands-Mather & Company, are the owners and operators of the second largest bulk cargo fleet of ships on the Great Lakes. For the most part, its ships transport bulk cargoes of coal and iron ore between Great Lakes ports in the United States and Canada.

Defendant Marine Engineers Beneficial Association, Local 101, referred to hereinafter as MEBA, is a voluntary unincorporated association which admits to membership licensed engineers employed on commercial vessels on the Great Lakes and the oceans.

Defendant Charles LaPorte is an agent and business representative of MEBA. His duties include the direction of the activities of MEBA in Duluth, Minnesota.

On November 11, 1959, Interlake's vessel, Samuel Mather, arrived at the dock of the Carnegie Dock & Fuel Company at Duluth, Minnesota, to unload a cargo of coal. The unloading of the vessel by the employees of Carnegie Dock Fuel Company commenced shortly after the ship had docked. In the normal course of events the ship would have been unloaded in about 34 hours.

Early in the morning of November 12, 1959, five or six men began picketing the single private road entrance to the dock, walking in a tight circle across the road. Some of the men carried signs which read:

'Pickands-Mather Unfair To Organized Labor

This Dispute Only Involves Pickands-Mather M.E.B.A. Loc. 101

A.F.L.--C.I.O.'

Others carried signs which read: 'M.E.B.A. Loc. 101 AFL--CIO

Requests P.M. Engineers To Join with Organized

Labor to Better Working Conditions

This Dispute Only Involves Pickands-Mather'

After the picketing of this road began, dockworkers employed by Carnegie Dock & Fuel Company refused to proceed with the unloading of the vessel. Later the same day, the District Court of St. Louis County issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting such picketing, but the dock-workers still refused to unload the cargo. As a further result of the picketing, certain independent truckdrivers refused to enter the premises and take delivery of coal for 2 hours.

Defendant Charles LaPorte, who identified himself on November 12, 1959, as business agent of MEBA, Local 101, stated that it was the intention of the union to picket all Pickands-Mather ships coming into the harbor.

On November 15, 1959, while the Samuel Mather remained partially unloaded at the dock, Interlake's vessel, Pickands, arrived in the Duluth harbor with another load of coal destined for unloading at the same dock. Since the dock could handle only one ship at a time, the Pickands had to remain anchored in the harbor for a number of days.

On the night of November 12, 1959, four or five pickets with signs identifying them with MEBA appeared at the entrance to the Duluth plant of the Interlake Iron Corporation and moved around continuously across the plant entrance. At that time there was no dispute between Interlake Iron Corporation and its employees, and none of its employees were on the picket line.

Each Interlake vessel has a chief engineer and three assistant engineers, all of whom are licensed by the coast guard. Plaintiffs' evidence sought to show that all Interlake engineers and assistant engineers are supervisory employees. Defendants introduced no evidence on this point but admitted that all of the engineers and assistant engineers aboard the Mather were supervisors.

Plaintiffs had no dispute of any kind with the employees on the Interlake fleet at the time of the picketing, and prior to the picketing there had never been any negotiations between plaintiffs and defendants nor had defendants ever made any request of the plaintiffs for leave to board its ships. Interlake had an established policy to prohibit any unauthorized person from boarding its ships. Request had never been made of any Interlake official for permission to board such ships, but the right to do so was refused by the person who was on watch at the ship at the time in accordance with the rules of Interlake forbidding any unauthorized person to go aboard.

Plaintiffs' representatives and Interlake's chief executive officers knew of no MEBA members in the fleet. Defendants claim that it did have some such engineers as members but refused to disclose the names thereof. The trial court found that all of the engineers and assistant engineers employed on plaintiff's vessels are supervisors within the meaning of the National Labor Relations Act.

Picketing which prevented the unloading of the vessels caused financial loss to plaintiffs amounting to about $6,000 per day, not including any profit.

A hearing was held on November 18, 1959, after which a temporary injunction was granted, and a permanent injunction was subsequently ordered on March 28, 1960.

It is the contention of defendants (1) that the state court lacks jurisdiction over the subject matter of the action; and (2) that if the state court does have jurisdiction the injunction should nevertheless have been denied.

1. Defendants first contend that the state court lacks jurisdiction to enjoin picketing for organizational or recognition purposes but that such jurisdiction rests exclusively with the National Labor Relations Board. To support this contention, they rely on Norris Grain Co. v. Seafarers' International Union, 232 Minn. 91, 46 N.W.2d 94, and Faribault Daily News, Inc. v. International Typog. Union, 236 Minn. 303, 53 N.W.2d 36; Annotation, 32 A.L.R.2d 1026.

Under the original Federal Labor Management Relations Act of 1935 the contention of defendants no doubt would be sound. Packard Motor Car Co. v. National Labor Relations Board, 330 U.S. 485, 67 S.Ct. 789, 91 L.Ed. 1040. The Federal act, however, was amended in 1947 by the so-called Taft-Hartley Act, and the amendments brought about at that time are of great importance in this case. As so amended, the law is found in 29 U.S.C.A. § 152(3), 61 Stat. 137, and, as far as pertinent here, reads:

'The term 'employee' shall include any employee, and shall not be limited to the employees of a particular employer, unless this subchapter explicitly states otherwise, * * * But shall not include * * * any individual employed as a supervisor, * * *.' (Italics supplied.)

29 U.S.C.A. § 152(11), 61 Stat. 138, reads:

'The term 'supervisor' means any individual having authority, in the interest of the employer, to hire, transfer, suspend, lay off, recall, promote, discharge, assign, reward, or discipline other employees, or responsibly to direct them, or to adjust their grievances, or effectively to recommend such action, if in connection with the foregoing the exercise of such authority is not of a merely routine or clerical nature, but requires the use of independent judgment.'

29 U.S.C.A. § 164(a), 61 Stat. 151, reads:

'Nothing herein shall prohibit any individual employed as a supervisor from becoming or remaining a member of a labor organization, but no employer subject to this subchapter shall be compelled to deem individuals defined herein as supervisors as employees for the purpose of any law, either national or local, relating to collective bargaining.'

29 U.S.C.A. § 157, 61 Stat. 140, defines the right of employees to organize and reads:

'Employees shall have the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection, and shall also have the right to refrain from any or all of such activities except to the extent that such right may be affected by an agreement requiring membership in a labor organization as a condition of employment as authorized in section 158(a)(3) of this title.'

The trial court found that the engineers employed by plaintiffs were supervisors within the meaning of the above Federal provisions. That finding has ample support in the record and is not, we believe, seriously disputed by defendants.

Defendants argue, however, that it has now been determined in National Marine Engineers Beneficial Ass'n v. National Labor Relations Board, 2 Cir., 274 F.2d 167, that MEBA is a labor organization subject to the secondary boycott provisions of the Federal act and that, inasmuch as the complaint in this case alleges a violation of the secondary boycott provisions of both state and Federal laws, it follows that the National Labor Relations Board has exclusive jurisdiction under our decision in Norris Grain Co. v. Seafarers' International Union, supra. This contention is untenable for at least two reasons. In the first place,...