Karges Furniture Co. v. Amalgamated Woodworkers' Local Union No. 131

• Decision Date: 31 October 1905
• Docket Number: No. 20,533.,20,533.
• Citation: 165 Ind. 421,75 N.E. 877
• Parties: KARGES FURNITURE CO. v. AMALGAMATED WOODWORKERS' LOCAL UNION NO. 131 et al.
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

165 Ind. 421

75 N.E. 877

KARGES FURNITURE CO.

v.AMALGAMATED WOODWORKERS' LOCAL UNION NO. 131 et al.

No. 20,533.

Supreme Court of Indiana.

Oct. 31, 1905.

Appeal from Superior Court, Vanderburgh County; John H. Foster, Judge.

Suit by the Karges Furniture Company against the Amalgamated Woodworkers' Local Union No. 131 and others. From a decree in favor of plaintiff for less than the relief demanded, it appeals. Case transferred from Appellate Court, under Burns' Ann. St. § 1337u. Affirmed.J. E. Williamson and George A. Cunningham, for appellant. A. W. Funkhouser, F. M. Hostetter, and A. F. Funkhouser, for appellees.

HADLEY, J.

Appellant brought this action against the appellees the Amalgamated Woodworkers' Union No. 131 of Evansville, an unincorporated labor organization, and members thereof, to enjoin appellees, the members being on strike, from picketing, intimidating, and otherwise interfering with the plaintiff's employés and business. The complaint, in two paragraphs, was answered by a general denial. There was a trial, a special finding, and injunction awarded against 14 of the appellees, and finding and judgment in favor of the remaining appellees, including said Amalgamated Woodworkers' Union.

The real question presented by the record is the refusal of the court to enjoin the defendant union and all its members from picketing, and otherwise intermeddling with appellant's business.

1. The first question to be considered is, can an action be maintained against an unincorporated society or association? “A private corporation,” says Field, J., in Mining Co. v. Pennsylvania, 125 U. S. 189, 8 Sup. Ct. 741, 31 L. Ed. 650, “is merely an association of individuals united for a special purpose, and permitted to do business under a particular name and have a succession of members without dissolution.” In England corporations exist only by virtue of letters patent, issued by permission of the Crown, and in this state corporations can be created only by special permission of the state, expressed in legislative enactment. Corporations may in their corporate name sue and be sued and hold title to property. The interest of its several members is represented by shares, which may be sold and transferred to a stranger without affecting a dissolution or the status of the corporate body. A fundamental purpose for the creation of corporations is to subserve public welfare and convenience by bestowing the character of individuality upon a combination of capital and individuals, for the accomplishment of such things as may not be so well or readily achieved by a single person, and that may not be ended by death or the withdrawal of a part of their members; and such body, being created by authority of a statute, and endowed with certain rights and obligations, is recognized by the law as an artificial person, possessed of the right to sue and be sued. On the other hand, in the absence of an enabling statute defining the rights and liabilities of the members, societies, associations, partnerships, and other bodies, combined under their own rule, for their own private benefit, and without any express sanction of law, are not, in the collective capacity and name, recognized at common law as having any legal existence distinct from their members. Hence no power to sue or be sued in the company name. Such unincorporated associations, so far as their rights and liabilities are concerned, are rated as partnerships, and to enforce a right either for or against them, as in partnerships, the name of all the individual members must be set forth, either as plaintiffs or defendants. Hays v. Lanier, 3 Blackf. 322;Hughes v. Walker, 4 Blackf. 51;Holland v. Butler, 5 Blackf. 255;Livingston v. Harvey, 10 Ind. 218;Adams Ex. Co. v. Hill, 43 Ind. 157;Pollock v. Dunning, 54 Ind. 115; 22 Ency. Pl. & Pr. pp. 230, 242, and cases collated. We have no statute abrogating the rule at common law. Hence it must be held that this rule is still in force in this state, and, regardless of the evidence, the court committed no error in denying an injunction against the appellee the Amalgamated Woodworkers' Union.

2. Does the finding show a conspiracy to injure the plaintiff? A conspiracy is defined to be “a combination of two or more persons, by some concerted action, to accomplish a criminal or unlawful purpose, or to accomplish a purpose, not in itself criminal or unlawful, by criminal or unlawful means.” Commonwealth v. Hunt, 4 Metc. 111-123, 38 Am. Dec. 346;Spies v. People, 122 Ill. 213, 12 N. E. 865, 17 N. E. 898, 3 Am. St. Rep. 320; 3 Greenleaf's Ev. § 89. It is disclosed by the special finding that the Woodworkers' Union of Evansville had about 600 members, all employed in some one of the ten furniture factories in said city, and of the appellees nine were nonmembers and the others were members of the union. On March 17, 1903, at a meeting of the union it was resolved by a free vote of the members, 330 to 17, that all members should, on April 1, 1903, as a body, discontinue their work at their several places of employment, unless meanwhile the employers, including the plaintiff, should agree to an advance in wages, to a shorter work day, and to furnish a scale of prices to be paid piece workers. Appellees all, except the nonmembers, either voted for the resolution or subsequently ratified it. By order of the union, notice of the demands, signed by the president and secretary, was on March 21st delivered to the plaintiff. On April 1st, the demands upon the employers not having been complied with, all the plaintiff's employés, but about 20 nonmembers of the union, each one acting voluntarily in concert with others, and in pursuance of the agreement and vote, quit their employment and left the plaintiff's factory. Soon after the strike was inaugurated, the union, with the participation or subsequent ratification of the appellees, organized a picket system, whereby pickets were regularly and daily maintained in the vicinity of all the factories affected by the strike. Each morning a meeting of the union was held to distribute food supplies, to appoint picket committees, composed of from two to eight men, to receive reports therefrom, and to consider such means as might be necessary to compel the plaintiff to grant its demands. The pickets thus chosen, to avoid recognition by employers, were assigned so that no one would picket the factory where he had been employed. The pickets were uniformly instructed by the president and other officers of the union before going on duty to take note of those entering and leaving the factory, to ascertain their names and places of residence, and, as far as they could, by fair and peaceful means to influence those remaining at work to quit, and prevent new men from entering to take the places of those on strike. It was often declared by the president, and always unanimously indorsed by the members present, that the policy of the union was: First. That the members of the union should endeavor by peaceable persuasion, and not otherwise, to induce such woodworkers as were not members of said union, and who remained in the employ of the plaintiff and other employers, to join the union and co-operate in the strike. Second. That they should seek the acquaintance of such working nonunion men, visit them at their homes, and there, and at all other suitable places, discuss with them the mutual benefits of the union, and the importance of their quitting work, and by fair argument and peaceable measures try to induce them both to cease working and attach themselves to the union. Third. That under no circumstances should any striker endeavor, by any form of violence, threats, or intimidations, to influence the acts and conduct of any one engaged or about to engage at work in said factories, including the plaintiff's. The peaceable policy adopted by the union, and given as instructions to the pickets, was adopted and given in good faith, and the defendants individually and collectively, as members of the union, at all times intended to effectuate the purposes of the strike by lawful means, and not by violence, threats, or intimidation.

The plaintiff's factory is so situate that many miners, moulders, and other workmen reside in the neighborhood, and pass and repass the plaintiff's factory in going to and from their work, and occasionally groups or crowds of men generally composed in small part of strikers, would assemble in the alley and streets about the plaintiff's factory, and sometimes accost the plaintiff's workmen as they entered or left the factory, by calling them scabs and other opprobrious names. On the 7th and 8th of April, and on subsequent days, certain of the employés of the plaintiff, on their way home from work, were stopped and followed by groups of men, including in some one or more of the groups the defendants John Gebhardt, Harry Thomas, John Kramer, John Mandel, John Siemers, Robert Fisher, Charles Lipking, Frank Barnes, Henry Pittineier, Frank Gebhardt, John Stock, Fred Wilhelm, and Leander Cook, who in one instance assaulted said employés, and in all called said employés offensive names, and cursed and threatened them with violence if they did not quit work in plaintiff's factory. On many occasions other of the defendants stopped and visited the plaintiff's employés, and argued with them the propriety of quitting work; but such argument and conversations were held in a fair and friendly spirit, and devoid of any form of intimidation or offense. The withdrawal of the plaintiff's workmen and its inability to secure others to take their places so seriously impaired the productive capacity of the factory that the plaintiff was unable to fill the orders it had accepted, and it was thereby damaged, and had reasonable grounds to expect further and continuing damages. The employés who remained at work in plaintiff's factory, except a few who afterwards quit on account of the strike and its...