Lyons v. United States Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corp.

• Decision Date: 19 January 1922
• Docket Number: 3728,3745.,3737
• Citation: 278 F. 144
• Parties: LYONS et al. v. UNITED STATES SHIPPING BOARD EMERGENCY FLEET CORPORATION. NEWMAN et al. v. SAME. TAYLOR v. SAME.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

278 F. 144

LYONS et al. v. UNITED STATES SHIPPING BOARD EMERGENCY FLEET CORPORATION.

NEWMAN et al. v. SAME.

TAYLOR v. SAME.

Nos. 3728, 3737, 3745.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

January 19, 1922

W. J Waguespack and Herbert W. Waguespack, both of New Orleans La. (W. J. Waguespack, Jr., of New Orleans, La., on the brief), for appellants and plaintiffs in error.

Louis H. Burns, U.S. Atty., and W. J. O'Hara, Asst. U.S. Atty both of New Orleans, La., for appellee and defendant in error.

Before WALKER, BRYAN, and KING, Circuit Judges.

WALKER Circuit Judge.

These three cases were argued and submitted together. In one of them is sought the reversal of a decree ordering the issuance of a preliminary injunction in a suit brought by the appellee, United States Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corporation. In the other two cases orders of the court adjudging individuals in contempt for violations of the injunction issued in the first-mentioned case are complained of.

The question of the sufficiency of the bill in the case in which the injunction was issued was not raised in the trial court. It is now contended that that bill was fatally defective, because it did not describe with particularity the property or property right sought to be protected by injunction, as required by the provisions of the statute as to injunctions in cases growing out of disputes concerning terms or conditions of employment. Section 20, Act Oct. 15, 1914, 38 Stat. 738 (Comp. St. Sec. 1243d). That bill contained averments to the following effect: The complainant therein is and has been engaged in the business of operating steamships and tugs carrying interstate and foreign commerce, and of towing vessels laden with interstate and foreign commerce, and at the time of the filing of the bill had in the port of New Orleans approximately 85 steamships and 4 tugboats, all engaged in said commerce.

The defendants named in the bill prior to the filing thereof were employed by the complainant in operating its ships, or are identified with the employment of said former employees. After the complainant announced a reduction in the wages of all its employees in the engine, steward, and unlicensed deck departments, the defendants, who were previously employees of the complainant, voluntarily gave up their employment and/or have declined to return to work for complainant under the new wages. Complainant has been endeavoring to carry on its business since its former employees left its service. The men employed by the complainant in place of its former employees have been assaulted, beaten, threatened, and intimidated, and in many cases have been forced by violence to cease work on complainant's ships. Defendants and their sympathizers, by repeated acts of violence and repeated threats, have undertaken to intimidate and coerce complainant's employees and to prevent them from rendering their services to the complainant. Complainant's employees on two of its named ships were on stated dates forced to leave such ships by threats and violence of the defendants and/or their sympathizers.

The injunction granted against the persons named as defendants and other persons of names unknown forbade such unlawful conduct as was alleged in the bill. The averments of the bill clearly disclose that the ships and tugs used by the complainant therein in its alleged business and its right to carry on that business were the property and the property right sought to be protected by the relief prayed for. Those averments left no room for conjecture or surmise as to...