Malone v. Gardner

• Decision Date: 28 November 1932
• Docket Number: No. 3325.,3325.
• Citation: 62 F.2d 15
• Parties: MALONE v. GARDNER et al.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

62 F.2d 15 (1932)

MALONE v. GARDNER et al.

No. 3325.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

November 28, 1932.

W. W. Goldsmith, of Beckley, W. Va. (File, Goldsmith & Scherer and Ashton File, all of Beckley, W. Va., on the brief), for appellant.

J. W. Maxwell, of Beckley, W. Va., and Clarence E. Weisell, of Cleveland, Ohio (Oscar J. Horn, of Cleveland, Ohio, on the brief), for appellees.

Before PARKER, NORTHCOTT, and SOPER, Circuit Judges.

SOPER, Circuit Judge.

P. O. Malone, a locomotive engineer in the employ of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway Company, brought this suit in equity in the District Court on his own behalf as plaintiff and as the representative of a large number of other locomotive engineers, similarly engaged, against certain other locomotive engineers employed by the railway company, including Lynn Gardner and W. L. Burk, who were sued in their own right and as officers of Division 101 of the Grand International Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. The bill of complaint alleges that prior to the time when the employment of the parties to the suit began, the railway company and the brotherhood made a contract wherein the railway system was divided into seniority districts, and certain seniority rights were established and conferred upon locomotive engineers. Amongst the seniority districts set up were the New River seniority district, which comprised the main line of the railway from Hinton to Handley, W. Va., and intermediate branch lines, and the Alleghany seniority district, which comprised the main line from Hinton, W. Va., to Clifton Forge, Va., and intermediate branch lines. The railway company agreed to maintain seniority rosters for each district upon which the name of an employee should be placed when he was promoted to the grade of engineer therein; that the engineers in each district should have preference in all matters of employment in the order of seniority; that each engineer should be restricted to the district to which he was assigned and would not be allowed to work in other districts when engineers therein were available; and that if an engineer should be transferred from one district to another, he should rank as a new man therein and become junior to all pre-existing appointees. This contract, the bill shows, became a part of the contract of employment between the railway company and the plaintiff and his associates when they entered the employ of the railway company.

The bill of complaint further shows that the defendants are engineers operating locomotives in the Alleghany seniority district, while the plaintiff and his associates are performing work as engineers in the New River seniority district; and that the defendants have entered into a conspiracy to interfere with the contracts of the plaintiff and his associates, for the purpose of coercing or persuading the railway company to permit the defendants to do work in the New River seniority district as engineers; and that the conspiracy has been successful, and the railway company has been induced to commit numerous breaches of the contracts of employment of the plaintiff and his associates and has permitted the defendants to do work in the New River seniority district which the plaintiff and his associates are entitled to do by reason of their seniority rights, and hence they have been deprived of the benefits and advantages of their contracts of employment.

The plaintiff prays that a temporary restraining order be granted, restraining the defendants from interfering with, influencing, or coercing the railway company to commit a breach of the contracts, or from doing any work for the railway company in the New River seniority district which the plaintiffs are ready and willing to do and perform; and that upon a final trial of the cause, a permanent injunction to the same effect be granted.

It is alleged in the bill that the federal court has jurisdiction of the suit because it is a suit of a civil nature which arises under the Constitution and laws of the United States, particularly under the Act of Congress of May 20, 1926, known as the Railway Labor Act, 44 Stat. 577, 45 U. S. C. §§ 151-163 (45 USCA §§ 151-163) and the laws of the United States relating to interstate commerce. The defendants in due time moved the court to dismiss the bill on the ground that the District Court did not have jurisdiction to entertain the suit, because no federal question was involved; and on the further ground that the bill was otherwise defective in that it failed to state sufficient facts to show a cause of action in equity. The District Judge, after argument, sustained the motion and dismissed the bill on the ground that it did not present for determination any question arising under the Constitution or laws of the United States of which the federal court could take cognizance. We are in accord with this view of the case, and shall confine our discussion to this point.

While the plaintiff refers generally to the laws of the United States relating to interstate commerce, no act other than the Railway Labor Act of 1926 is specifically referred to either in the pleadings or the argument. The provisions of the Railway Labor Act which seem to be relied on are found in subdivisions (1) and (2) of section 2, 45 U. S. C. § 152 (45 USCA § 152 (1, 2), as follows:

"§ 152. General Duties

"First. Duty of Carriers and Employees to Settle Disputes. It shall be the duty of all carriers, their officers, agents, and employees to exert every reasonable effort to make and maintain agreements concerning rates of pay, rules, and working conditions, and to settle all disputes, whether arising out of the application of such agreements or otherwise, in order to avoid any interruption to commerce or to the operation of any carrier growing out of any dispute between the carrier and the employees thereof.

"Second. Consideration of Disputes by Representatives. All disputes between a carrier and its employees shall be considered, and, if possible, decided, with all expedition, in conference between representatives designated and authorized so to confer, respectively, by the carriers and by the employees thereof interested in the dispute."

The plaintiff points out that these provisions of the act impose upon the defendants the duty to exert every reasonable effort to maintain the agreements between the railway company and its employees respecting the seniority rights of the engineers; and that in defiance of the law, they have induced the railway company to break the agreements and to deny the plaintiff's rights. It is contended, therefore, that the facts set out in the bill present in good faith a substantial controversy which involves the questions as to what is the meaning and effect of the statute when considered in its bearing upon the agreements described, and what is the right of the plaintiff to enjoin the defendants from the performance of those acts which violate the statutory duty imposed upon them. In order to answer these questions it is said that a consideration of the meaning or applicability of the Railway Labor Act is required, and hence the case comes within the meaning of the federal statute conferring jurisdiction on the District Courts where the matter in controversy arises under the Constitution or laws of the United States. 28 U. S. C. § 41 (1) (a), 28 USCA § 41 (1) (a).

It has long been decided that a suit does not arise under the laws of the United States within the meaning of this jurisdictional requirement unless it really and substantially involves a dispute respecting the validity, construction, or effect of such a law, upon the determination of which the result depends. Unless this is the case, the federal court does not necessarily have jurisdiction even though the suit to enforce the right relied upon takes its origin in the laws of the United States, as, for instance, a right to land acquired under a law of the United States. Shulthis v. McDougal, 225 U. S. 561, 569, 32 S. Ct. 704, 56 L. Ed. 1205. The mere assertion in a pleading that the case is one involving the construction or application of the federal laws does not authorize the District Court to entertain the suit, for if the plaintiff does not really rely upon a federal statute for his right to recover, or if the claim of right is plainly without color of merit or frivolous, jurisdiction does not exist. The Fair v. Kohler Die & Specialty Co., 228 U. S. 22, 33 S. Ct. 410, 57 L. Ed. 716; Bankers' Mut. Casualty Co. v. Minn., St. P. & S. S. M. R. Co., 192 U. S. 371, 380, 24 S. Ct. 325, 48 L. Ed. 484; Excelsior Wooden Pipe Company v. Pacific Bridge Co., 185 U. S. 282, 287, 288, 22 S. Ct. 681, 46 L. Ed....