JC McFarland Co. v. O'BRIEN

• Decision Date: 10 April 1925
• Docket Number: No. 1402.,1402.
• Citation: 6 F.2d 1016
• Parties: J. C. McFARLAND CO. v. O'BRIEN et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Ohio

6 F.2d 1016 (1925)

J. C. McFARLAND CO. v. O'BRIEN et al.

No. 1402.

District Court, N. D. Ohio, E. D.

April 10, 1925.

Stanley & Horwitz, of Cleveland, Ohio, for plaintiffs.

J. Paul Thompson and Wm. J. Dawley, both of Cleveland, Ohio, for defendants.

WESTENHAVER, District Judge.

The jurisdiction of this court is invoked on the ground of diversity of citizenship. The defendants are seven local unions of five international labor unions in the building trades, and individual officers of said local unions, and also the George A. Fuller Company, a corporation. The object of the bill is to enjoin unlawful interference by all said defendants with the performance by plaintiff, as subcontractor under the George A. Fuller Company, general contractor, of certain work in the construction of a large building now under erection for the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers Building Association, Inc. The bill was filed March 25, 1925. An order to show cause was issued, returnable April 2. Affidavits were filed and argument had and cause submitted April 6.

Upon this hearing, all the local unions and their officers except the painters were exonerated from participation in the alleged illegal conspiracy. The remaining inquiry is whether plaintiff is now entitled to a preliminary injunction against the Fuller Company and Local Unions Nos. 867, 765, and 639, of the Brotherhood of Painters, Decorators, and Paper Hangers of America and their officers personally made defendants. Upon the merits of the controversy, this case is not distinguishable from Central Metal Products Corporation v. O'Brien, in which opinions were filed by me — one on the application for preliminary injunction, reported 278 F. 827, and one on final hearing, not reported, filed June 20, 1923, affirmed on appeal see 5 F. (2d) 389. The law as therein stated is approved and need not be reiterated.

Briefly, plaintiff's contract with the George A. Fuller Company is plaintiff's property. In law it is entitled to protection on the same basis and under the same rules as is one's dwelling house. In law, the officers of said three local unions and the George A. Fuller Company have no more right to conspire or agree to deprive plaintiff of its property in that contract than they would have to conspire and agree to deprive plaintiff of its office building. It is immaterial that the George A. Fuller Company joined said conspiracy unwillingly and with a view to protect itself from loss on its contract or with other subcontractors. In law, said local unions, their officers and members, have no right to coerce the George A. Fuller Company to join their conspiracy under threat of withdrawing their members from working for other subcontractors on said building or other buildings on which the George A. Fuller Company and other subcontractors were engaged. In law, complainant has the full right to employ any competent workmen, whether members of the defendants' local unions or other unions or no unions, to perform the work of painting or finishing down its elevator and swing doors and metal trim. In law, said local unions and their members had the right to procure this work from the plaintiff by the same methods as other workers not members of their union would have a right to procure it. It is true that they have the right to combine and act through agents selected by themselves to apply for said work and bargain collectively as to the terms upon which it is to be done, but the combined right is, in law, no greater than the right of a single worker.

Section 132 of the constitution of the Brotherhood of Painters, Decorators and Paper Hangers of America, set forth in the affidavits and any custom or practice of building contractors in Cleveland or elsewhere, of dealing with defendant local unions in accordance therewith, furnishes no justification in law for defendants' coercion of the George A. Fuller Company to break its contract with plaintiff, nor any justification in law to the George A. Fuller Company for so doing. The demand of the defendant local unions and of the George A. Fuller Company that plaintiff comply therewith is, in law, a demand that plaintiff give up its property. See two opinions above referred to in Central Metal Products Corporation v. O'Brien, and...