Kansas City Terminal Ry. Co. v. Manion

• Decision Date: 09 April 1956
• Docket Number: No. 1,No. 45128,45128,1
• Citation: 290 S.W.2d 63
• Parties: 37 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2849, 30 Lab.Cas. P 69,889 KANSAS CITY TERMINAL RAILWAY COMPANY, a Corporation, Respondent, v. Keith L. MANION et al., Appellants
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

Page 63

290 S.W.2d 63

37 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2849, 30 Lab.Cas. P 69,889

KANSAS CITY TERMINAL RAILWAY COMPANY, a Corporation, Respondent, v. Keith L. MANION et al., Appellants.

No. 45128.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 1.

April 9, 1956.

Motion for Rehearing or to Transfer to Court en Banc Denied

May 14, 1956.

Ralph M. Jones, Charles B. Blackmar, Blackmar, Swanson, Midgley, Jones & Eager, Kansas City, Harold C. Heiss, Russell B. Day, Cleveland, Ohio, of counsel, for appellants.

Horace F. Blackwell, Jr., Sam D. Parker, Lathrop, Righter, Blackwell & Parker, Kansas City, for respondent.

Kenneth F. Burgess, Walter J. Cummings, Jr., William K. Bachelder, Sidley, Austin, Burgess & Smith, Chicago, Ill., of council, for amici curiae.

Clarence M. Mulholland, Toledo, Ohio, Edward J. Hickey, Jr., Washington, D. C., Richard R. Lyman, Toledo, Ohio, Mulholland, Robie & Hickey, Toledo, Ohio, of counsel, for Railway Labor Executives Ass'n.

DALTON, Presiding Judge.

Action in equity for an injunction to prevent defendants from engaging in a threatened strike. The defendants include certain representatives of a labor union and other employees of plaintiff as hereinafter referred to. After a hearing, a permanent injunction was ordered and defendants have appealed.

Plaintiff (respondent here) is a corporation and common carrier by railroad, engaged in interstate commerce and subject to the Railway Labor Act, 45 U.S.C.A. Sec. 151 et seq. It owns and operates various railroad terminal facilities, including engines and tracks for switching and transfer of railroad equipment for various railroads in Kansas City, Missouri and Kansas.

The Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen (hereinafter referred to as Brotherhood) is a voluntary unincorporated railroad labor organization and, since March 31, 1951, it has been the collective bargaining representative under the Railway Labor Act for all firemen, engineers, hostlers and hostler helpers employed by plaintiff. Certain named officers of the Brotherhood and all its members as a class were defendants in the action.

On March 31, 1951, plaintiff and the Brotherhood, as collective bargaining representatives for said employees of plaintiff, executed a collective bargaining agreement providing that all claims or grievances by or on behalf of any of the employees involved would be processed by presentation to a designated officer of the carrier and if the claimant were dissatisfied with the decision it could be appealed through to the carrier's highest officer designated to handle claims and grievances. Subsection 2 of Article VII of said agreement provides: '(c) The procedure outlined in Paragraphs (a) and (b) shall govern in appeals taken to each succeeding officer. Decision by the highest officer designated to handle claims and grievances, shall be final and binding unless within sixty days after written notice of the decision of said officer he is notified in writing that his decision is not accepted. All claims or grievances involved in a decision of the highest officer shall be barred unless, within six months from the date of said officer's decision, proceedings are instituted by the employee or his duly authorized representative before a tribunal having jurisdiction pursuant to law or agreement of the claim or grievance involved. It is understood, however, that the parties may by agreement in any particular case extend the six months period herein referred to.'

On April 14, 1953, this collective bargaining agreement was amended by the addition of what is referred to as the 'no new work rule.' The amendment provides that engineers, firemen and hostlers would be given no new work after completing a day's work of eight hours, except that they might be required to finish the work they were performing at the end of the eight hour day, and that they would also be expected to work overtime in the event of an emergency.

A disagreement arose between plaintiff and its employees as to the meaning of this rule and claims were filed by employees and prosecuted by the Brotherhood for penalty pay for overtime and for pay for other work based upon alleged violations of the agreement by plaintiff. By June 26, 1953, a total of 100 time claims based upon violation of the 'no new work rule' had been filed and four time claims based upon other rules of the collective bargaining agreement, these claims were all rejected by plaintiff's highest designated officer on September 25, 1953. By September 6, 1954, a total of 860 engineers' time claims and 864 firemen's time claims for penalty pay based upon alleged violations of the 'no new work rule' had been filed against plaintiff and denied by its highest designated officer. As of November 1, 1954, a total of 2183 time claims in the amount of $54,117.48 had been filed against plaintiff. These claims were declined by plaintiff's designated officer and notice of disagreement with such declination was given to plaintiff.

It was stipulated between the parties, as follows: 'Payment has been made for all straight time worked by the employees for or on whose behalf claims herein involved have been presented, and overtime for hours actually worked has been paid at one and one half times the computed hourly rate of the employees. The claims filed are for penalty pay in addition to this. * * * No proceedings to enforce the payment of any of the foregoing time claims have ever been instituted by any defendant or his duly authorized representative before any court or before the National Railroad Adjustment Board or Before any tribunal having jurisdiction thereof pursuant to agreement of the parties.'

Other evidence tended to show that on February 3, 1954, the Brotherhood circulated among the employees what is termed a 'Strike Ballot.' The document recited the inability of the Brotherhood to obtain adjustment of (1) Time claims based upon violation of the 'no new work rule'; (2) Time claims based upon work 'farmed out' by plaintiff to employees of another railroad; (3) Miscellaneous time claims based on other contract provisions and other unsettled matters; and (4) Proposed changes in the terms of the collective bargaining agreement. A copy was furnished to paintiff. The vote was in favor of striking, if no satisfactory adjustment was made, but no date for a strike was set at the time.

On February 11, 1954, plaintiff invoked the services of the National Mediation Board under the heading 'Proposed Rule Changes,' under the Railway Labor Act to preserve the status quo, but took the position that issues 1, 2, and 3 on the 'Strike Ballot' were proper cases for the National Railroad Adjustment Board. On February 15, 1954, the Secretary of the National Mediation Board advised the President of the Brotherhood that plaintiff had so 'invoked the Board's services on the question under the heading 'Proposed Rule Changes." A federal mediator (Lane) was assigned to mediate the dispute and he appeared in Kansas City on March 23, 1954, to attempt mediation 'on all mediable items.' Plaintiff refused to grant a conference to defendants' representatives to discuss time claims in mediation and contended that these were not mediable matters. The Brotherhood offered, as indicated above, to attempt to settle both contract changes and time claims and maintain the status quo if the board would take jurisdiction of the entire dispute, but notified Mediator Lane that, if the time claims were not included in the mediation conferences, a strike date would be set. Thereafter, the Brotherhood set a date for a strike and notified the National Mediation Board of this action. The National Mediation Board Communicated with both parties and requested that they immediately enter into conferences on the time claims as well as on the rule changes, and that the threatened strike be deferred. The Brotherhood indicated its agreement, but plaintiff reiterated its claim that the time claims were not mediable matters and, ultimately, advised the National Mediation Board that a restraining order had been obtained in the present case. The Board took no further action.

Plaintiff in its amended petition alleged that neither the Brotherhood, as representative of said employees, nor any employee defendant individually 'instituted any proceedings before a tribunal having jurisdiction pursuant to law or agreement of the claims involved'; and that within 60 days after the claims were finally disallowed, they were barred by the collective bargaining agreement; and that defendant's strike to enforce these claims was an unlawful breach of the said agreement. Plaintiff further alleged that 'Independent of and apart from the agreement, the Railway Labor Act imposes upon defendants, and each of them, the affirmative duty to pursue and exhaust the administrative remedy available to defendants under said Act which required the orderly prosecution of said time claims before the National Railroad Adjustment Board, the only tribunal having jurisdiction under the Act to determine the merits of these time claims, and precludes a strike by defendants to enforce these time claims.' Defendants denied this allegation as a legal conclusion.

Plaintiff further alleged that the strike was unlawfully threatened 'against plaintiff for the purpose of compelling plaintiff to pay defendants' time claims for penalty pay and for other pay not legally enforceable by any proper tribunal and in violation of defendants' contractual agreement and statutory duties to pursue and exhaust the remedy provided by the contract and the Railway Labor Act.' In effect plaintiff charged that defendants had unlawfully breached their contractual and statutory obligations to plaintiff by calling a strike against plaintiff to enforce the payment of the time claims against it.

Defendants admitted a strike ballot was spread and that defendants authorized a strike 'on account of certain time claims and other matters,' but alleged that 'defendant...