Lockwood v. Chitwood
| Decision Date | 28 February 1939 |
| Docket Number | 28462. |
| Citation | 89 P.2d 951,185 Okla. 44,1939 OK 124 |
| Parties | LOCKWOOD et al. v. CHITWOOD. |
| Court | Oklahoma Supreme Court |
Rehearing Denied May 2, 1939.
Syllabus by the Court.
1. Where the contract or schedule entered into between a railroad company and a local division of the Order of Railway Conductors provides that "the rearrangement of runs may be made at any time as conditions require," and is silent as to who shall make such rearrangements, and that function is assumed by the local committee of such Order and exercised over a period of years with the assent of the company, the Order, and the employes, the assignments of runs as made up from time to time by said committee are valid and binding upon the employes, in the absence of arbitrary or unjust discrimination.
2. Record examined. Held: Evidence shows that under the rule of seniority as applied among railway conductors in the instant case the rights incident thereto extend no further than the privilege of selecting choice of train runs when such runs are arranged and designated by the proper authorities.
Appeal from District Court, Oklahoma County; Ben Arnold, Judge.
Suit by W. H. Chitwood against J. C. Lockwood and others, as local committee of the Order of Railway Conductors, to restrain alleged interference with his seniority rights as a conductor. From an adverse judgment, the defendants appeal.
Judgment reversed.
Grimm Elliott, Shuttleworth & Ingersoll, of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and J. K. Wright and Mont R. Powell, both of Oklahoma City, for plaintiffs in error.
R. B McCabe and Everest, McKenzie & Gibbens, all of Oklahoma City for defendant in error.
This is an injunction suit by a railway passenger conductor against the Local, or General, Committee of the Order of Railway Conductors to restrain interference with his seniority rights as such conductor with the O. C. A. & A. Railroad Company at Oklahoma City. The parties will be referred to as they appeared at the trial, or designated by name.
Plaintiff is the senior conductor in the employ of said railroad. After certain trains had been discontinued and resulting changes in schedules made from time to time affecting his so-called run, plaintiff and another conductor were assigned to a certain passenger train making daily trips. The time was divided between said conductors so that the plaintiff was assigned twenty or twenty-one days each month, depending upon the number of days therein, and the other conductor was assigned the remaining ten days. For some years this assignment or run continued unchanged. Then the railroad company discontinued the train on Sundays, and the defendant Lockwood, as chairman of said local committee, reassigned the two conductors, taking from plaintiff the full number of days lost by discontinuing the Sunday trips, and leaving the other conductor with his original ten days on passenger train and certain freight runs in addition thereto.
Plaintiff charges that under the terms of a certain contract entered into between the railroad company and the local chapter of the Order of Railway Conductors he has the preferential right as senior conductor to full time on the passenger train run, and that the action of the defendants in assigning him a part-time run was arbitrary, capricious, unlawful and a direct violation of his fundamental rights as secured to him under said contract.
The defense is that the plaintiff has not been denied his seniority rights, and that he has his choice at all times of the runs or assignments as made up and arranged by the defendant Lockwood as chairman of the local committee of the Order; that full power is given said chairman to make assignments or runs for the different conductors by the rules and regulations of said Order, and that the plaintiff has no voice in the matter, but is privileged, when said assignments are arranged, to take his choice thereof, and that he has never been denied that privilege. Defendants further pleaded lack of jurisdiction in the courts, and that the aforesaid contract was not for the benefit of the individual employes but for the benefit of the Order alone.
The trial court held that since the plaintiff for a number of years had continued without objection to work under the assignment whereby he and the other conductor had shared the passenger time, twenty days to the plaintiff per month, and ten to his junior conductor, he could not now demand the full time of the passenger run. The court further held that the assignment in question whereby the full loss of mileage occasioned by the discontinuation of the Sunday runs was taken from the plaintiff, and none taken from the junior...
To continue reading
Request your trial