Members of Bakery & Confectionery Workers Union v. Hall Baking Co.

• Decision Date: 05 October 1946
• Citation: 320 Mass. 286,69 N.E.2d 111
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court
• Parties: MEMBERS OF BAKERY & CONFECTIONERY WORKERS UNION, LOCAL NO. 458, v. HALL BAKING CO. SAME v. CONTINENTAL BAKING CO.

320 Mass. 286

69 N.E.2d 111

MEMBERS OF BAKERY & CONFECTIONERY WORKERS UNION, LOCAL NO. 458,

v.HALL BAKING CO.

SAME

v.CONTINENTAL BAKING CO.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Middlesex.

Oct. 5, 1946.

Report from Superior Court, Middlesex County; Dillon, Judge.

Action by the Members of Bakery and Confectionery Workers Union, Local Number 458, against the Hall Baking Company, and against the Continental Baking Company. The case was referred to an arbitrator and when award came before Superior Court for acceptance, confirmation and judgment, the judge, upon request of both parties, reported the case to the Supreme Judicial Court without decision.

Award accepted, confirmed, and declaratory decree entered.

Before FIELD, C. J., and LUMMUS, DOLAN, RONAN, and WILKINS, JJ.

M. T. Camacho, of Boston, and H. C. Gill, of Brockton, for plaintiffs.

B. Helman and W. J. Hickey, Jr., both of Boston, for defendants.

LUMMUS, Justice.

In 1941 the Hall Baking Company employed seventy-five ‘inside workers,’ members of the Bakery and Confectionery Workers Union, Local No. 458. The bakery products made by the inside workers were sold by one hundred thirty ‘driver salesmen’ employed by the company, who belonged to a different labor union. Because of a dispute over wages, the driver salesmen went on strike and remained idle from June 28, 1941, until July 28, 1941. Since the company could not sell its bakery products without the services of the driver salesmen, and those products would spoil unless promptly sold, the company was compelled to shut down its bakery during the strike and to notify the inside workers not to report for work. A written agreement, made between said Local No. 458 and the company, was in force, and the inside workers as members of that local union were entitled to the benefit of that written agreement. Whiting Milk Companies v. Grondin, 282 Mass. 41, 184 N.E. 379;Donovan v. Travers, 285 Mass. 167, 188 N.E. 705;Hamer v. Nashawena Mills, Inc., 315 Mass. 160, 165, 52 N.E.2d 22;J. I. Case Co. v. National Labor Relations Board, 321 U.S. 332, 64 S.Ct. 576, 88 L.Ed. 762;Medo Photo Supply Corp. v. National Labor Relations Board, 321 U.S. 678, 64 S.Ct. 830, 88 L.Ed. 1007;Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Railway v. Burley, 325 U.S. 711, 65 S.Ct. 1282, 89 L.Ed. 1886; Teller, Labor Disputes & Collective Bargaining (1940) §§ 165-168. The inside workers and their local union contend that under that written agreement the inside workers are entitled to full pay during the period of the strike although they did no work and could do no useful work.

The controversy created by that contention, by written agreement between the company and ‘the members of’ the labor union ‘Local No. 458,’ signed for the parties by their respective attorneys, was referred to an arbitrator as provided in G.L.(Ter.Ed.) c. 251, § 2. On July 11, 1942, the arbitrator reported to the Superior Court an award that the inside workers are entitled to nothing. When the award came before the Superior Court for acceptance, confirmation and judgment, the judge, upon the request of both parties, reported the case to this court without decision. See Inhabitants of Tisbury v. Inhabitants of West Tisbury, 171 Mass. 201, 50 N.E. 522;Cummington Realty Associates v. Whitten, 239 Mass. 313, 132 N.E. 53, 17 A.L.R. 527.

The first question is whether such a report without decision was authorized by our practice. Arbitration may be had of and controversy ‘which might be the subject of a personal action at law or of a suit in equity.’ G.L.(Ter.Ed.) c. 251, § 1. The ‘judgment’ upon the award may take the form of a judgment at law or a decree in equity. Section 10. If appellate procedure upon an award returned to the Superior Court were held to follow the practicein equity, what was done in this case would amount to a report under G.L.(Ter.Ed.) c. 214, § 31, and would bring the case here properly. Commissioner of Insurance v. Broad Street Mutual Casualty Ins. Co., 306 Mass. 362, 364, 28 N.E.2d 222;Dunlop v. Claussen, 313 Mass. 715, 48 N.E.2d 919. If, on the other hand, the appellate procedure upon such an award should be held to follow the practice in law cases, (as it must have done before the Superior Court acquired equity jurisdiction, Eaton v. Hall, 5 Metc. 287,Cummington Realty Associates v. Whitten, 239 Mass. 313, 323, 132 N.E. 53, 17 A.L.R. 527; see also G.L.(Ter.Ed.) c. 251, § 12; Giles v. Royal Ins. Co., 179 Mass. 261, 60 N.E. 786), then the question is whether in this case ‘there is agreement as to all the material facts,’ for only where there is such ‘agreement’ can an action at law be reported to this court without decision. G.L.(Ter.Ed.) c. 231, § 111. And such ‘agreement’ means a case stated, and nothing less. Moore v. Election of Commissioners of Cambridge, 309 Mass. 303, 305, 35 N.E.2d 222;Scaccia v. Boston Elevated Railway, 308 Mass. 310, 32 N.E.2d 253; Id., 317 Mass. 245, 248, 249, 57 N.E.2d 761. The present case was not submitted to the arbitrator upon a case stated, but was submitted to him upon agreed facts supplemented by ‘other evidence’ of written agreements between the parties. The award, by the agreement of the parties, determined the law as well as the facts, except as questions of law might be reserved for the Superior Court by the terms of the submission, or, as in the present case, by the voluntary act of the arbitrator. Fairchild v. Adams, 11 Cush. 549, 554;Ellicott v. Coffin, 106 Mass. 365;Carter v. Carter, 109 Mass. 306, 309;Cowley v. Dobbins, 123 Mass. 587;Rogers v. Mayer, 151 Mass. 279, 23 N.E. 836;Gillis v. Cobe, 177 Mass. 584, 590, 591, 59 N.E. 455; Selectmen of Danvers v. Commonwealth, 184 Mass. 502, 507, 69 N.E. 320;Electric Supply & Maintenance Co. v. Conway Electric Light & Power Co., 186 Mass. 449, 451, 71 N.E. 983;Cummington Realty Associates v. Whitten, 239 Mass. 313, 323, 132 N.E. 53, 17 A.L.R. 527. We think that the award upon which the case was presented to the Superior Court, like the report of an auditor whose findings of fact are made final by agreement,¹ was substantially a case stated. That being so, the case could be reported without decision under the third sentence of G.L.(Ter.Ed.) c. 231, § 111. In any view, the case is properly here.

The parties were properly before the court upon an agreement of submission signed in their behalf by their respective attorneys. When an award made upon a submission so signed is presented to the court for acceptance, confirmation and judgment, the question whether the attorneys were authorized to sign for the parties is open for trial. Boyden v. Lamb, 152 Mass. 416, 25 N.E. 609. See also J. F. Fitzgerald Construction Co. v. Southbridge Water Supply Co., 304 Mass. 130, 134, 23 N.E.2d 165. But in this case no question is made as to the authority of the attorneys. The members of the union were not named, it is true, nor did allegedly representative members purport to act for the entire membership, after the fashion of a class suit in equity. Pickett v. Walsh, 192 Mass. 572, 590, 78 N.E. 753, 6 L.R.A.,N.S., 1067, 116 Am.St.Rep. 272,7 Ann.Cas. 638;Reynolds v. Davis, 198 Mass. 294, 301, 84 N.E. 457, 17 L.R.A.,N.S., 162; Becker v. Calnan, 313 Mass. 625, 632, 48 N.E.2d 668. The unincorporated labor union is not a legal entity recognized by our law, and no judgment or decree and be entered in favor of or against it as distinguished from its members. Tyler v. Boot & Shoe Workers Union, 285 Mass. 54, 188 N.E. 509;Worthington Pump & Machinery Corp. v. Local No. 259 of the United Electrical Radio & Machine Workers of America, D. C., 63 F. Supp. 411. Compare State Street Trust Co. v. Hall, 311 Mass. 299, 304, 41 N.E.2d 30, 156 A.L.R. 13;United Mine Workers of America v. Coronado Coal Co., 259 U.S. 344, 42 S.Ct. 570, 66 L.Ed. 975, 27 A.L.R. 762;United States v. White, 322 U.S. 694, 64 S.Ct. 1248, 88 L.Ed. 1542, 152 A.L.R. 1202; Busby v. Electric Utilities Employees Union, 323 U.S. 72, 65 S.Ct. 142, 89 L.Ed. 78; Note, 149 A.L.R. 508.

The question in this case is not whether the members of the labor union have been properly made parties defendant to a proceeding by which they were haled before a court, but whether they have voluntarily agreed to a submission to arbitration. The agreement of submission purported to bind the ‘members' of the local union, not some supposed artificial entity. It is common in the law for individuals to be bound contractually though not named but merely described by the use of a trade or partnership or association name, or otherwise. Willcox v. Arnold, 162 Mass. 577, 39 N.E. 414;William Gilligan Co. v. Casey, 205 Mass. 26, 31, 91 N.E. 124;Sweetman v. Berrows, 263 Mass. 349, 355, 161 N.E. 272, 62 A.L.R. 311;Farnum v. Bankers' & Shippers' Ins. Co. of New York, 281 Mass. 364, 369, 183 N.E. 718;Stern v. Lieberman, 307 Mass. 77, 80, 29 N.E.2d 839. The members of the local union on behalf of whom the attorney for the union purported to sign the agreement of submission are hardly more difficult to ascertain and identify than they would have been had the equity practice of naming some members as representative of all been followed. See Malloy v. Carroll, 287 Mass. 376, 392, 191 N.E. 661. It cannot be said on the record before us that all the members of the local union would not be bound by the award if it should be accepted and confirmed and reduced to judgment, no question of agency being raised or argued.

It is, however, a principle of statutory arbitration that an award under the statute cannot be effective unless the court can apply and enforce it by some form of judgment or decree within its power. Brown v. Evans, 6 Allen, 333.Torrey v. Munroe, 119 Mass. 490.Cummington Realty Associates v. Whitten, 239 Mass. 313, 326, 132 N.E. 53, 17 A.L.R. 527.Franks v. Franks, 294...