M. Steinert & Sons Co. v. Tagen
| Decision Date | 04 January 1911 |
| Citation | 207 Mass. 394,93 N.E. 584 |
| Parties | M. STEINERT & SONS CO. v. TAGEN et al. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Plaintiff is a corporation engaged in the sale and moving of pianos. All the defendants are members of a certain voluntary association, called 'Piano and Furniture Movers' and Helpers' Union 343,' which is a labor union affiliated with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the American Federation of Labor. Plaintiff employed a number of teamsters for the delivery of pianos to purchasers and for moving pianos belonging to its customers from place to place, and all of these teamsters were members of said union. In April, 1910, the union to which defendants belonged endeavored to secure an increase in wages for the teamsters employed by plaintiff and shorter hours of labor, and failing to do so, on May 2, 1910, declared a strike. The teamsters eleven in number, at once ceased work. Plaintiff within a few days secured men to take their places, and has had since then and has now an adequate force and is not seeking any new men. After a short time the International Brotherhood of Teamsters ceased to aid the strikers any further on account of an alleged failure of the union to comply with the regulations (which were not shown to have been broken) of the Brotherhood in calling the strike, and the strikers sought other employment. Of the eleven men who struck, eight at once secured positions in Boston as piano movers or teamsters, and have continued in such employment, and the other three have left the state. October 14, 1910, defendant Tagen, acting in pursuance of a vote of the union, hired a horse and wagon and attached strips of canvas to the rear and sides of the wagon. The canvas strip on each side of the wagon bore the following inscription in conspicuous letters six inches high:
'The union teamsters are on strike for hours and wages at the following places:
On the rear of the wagon was the following inscription:
'I. B. of T.
A. F. of L.'
The defendant Tagen employed the defendant Kelley to drive this wagon through the streets of Boston every day for one week, passing in front of plaintiff's place of business and through Carver street once each day, and twice on one day in sight of the place where the teamsters of plaintiff when not in actual service congregated, and generally throughout the city, and the defendant Kelley so drove it. No crowds followed the wagon, or assembled in front of plaintiff's store, and no attempt other than by the use of this wagon was made by the defendants, or other members of the union or their sympathizers, to interfere with the plaintiff or to intimidate its employés. Plaintiff offered no evidence that any of its employés had left its employment or that any person had refrained from patronizing it on account of the display of these signs.
Hudson & Nichols, for plaintiff.
Frederick W. Mansfield, for defendants.
The strike of the plaintiff's employés in May was for the purpose of obtaining higher wages and shorter periods of labor. It was a justifiable strike. L. D. Willcutt & Sons Co. v. Driscoll, 200 Mass. 110, 113, 114, 130, 85 N.E. 897, 23 L. R. A. (N. S.) 1236. It does not appear to have been carried on in any respect in an unlawful manner or by the use of any unfair coercion or wrongful means. Nor could we say that the particular act charged in the bill to have been done by the defendants would be in itself an unlawful means of publishing the fact that a strike was going on. There was no picketing, no blocking of the streets, no actual interference with the plaintiff or with the men whom it employed in place of the strikers. We see nothing more than an attempt to inform the public, including probable applicants for work with the plaintiff, of the fact of the pending strike. Even if this were before doubtful, we could not now condemn it, in view of the provisions of St. 1910, c. 445, which imposed upon the plaintiff while the strike lasted the duty to give this information to any persons whom it solicited to take the place of the strikers. Of course, what we have said would not be applicable to a case presenting different circumstances from those which existed here, such as appeared for example in Plant v. Woods, 176 Mass. 492, 57 N.E. 1011, 51 L. R. A. 339, 79 Am. St. Rep. 30, Vegelahn v. Guntner, 167 Mass. 92, 44 N.E. 1077, 35 L. R. A. 722, 57 Am. St. Rep. 443, Sherry v. Perkins, 147 Mass. 212, 17 N.E. 307, 9 Am. St. Rep. 689, and similar cases.
But in the case at bar the strike was over. Although this fact was not expressly found in the superior court, in our opinion it is necessarily to be inferred from the facts which are found and must be taken to be a fact. Knowles v. Knowles, 205 Mass. 291, 294, 91 N.E. 213. The strike was declared May 2, 1910. The plaintiff within a few days secured men to take the places of the strikers, has had ever since an adequate force, and is not seeking any new men. Of the eleven men who left the plaintiff's employ eight soon secured and still have new employment in the same kind of work as before, and three have left this commonwealth. Moreover, a short time after the strike began, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the organization with which the defendants' labor union was affiliated, ceased to aid the strikers any further. It is difficult to imagine a case, short of a formal...
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