O'Neil v. Behanna

• Decision Date: 15 July 1897
• Docket Number: 69
• Citation: 37 A. 843,182 Pa. 236
• Parties: Margaret O'Neil, doing business as the Fayette City Coal Works, Appellant, v. Noah Behanna, George Hupp, John H. Wilson, Charles Wilson, Jr., Michael O'Neil, Robert I. Johnson, William Johnson, John Biles, J. N. Furlong, William T. Spalter, Jacob Carr, Frank Lowers, Link Lowers, Hugh McDonald, James McPherson, Thomas Haywood, Frank Bruce, James A. Jacobs, Charles Jacobs, Frank Jacobs and Paul Lamak
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

37 A. 843

182 Pa. 236

Margaret O'Neil, doing business as the Fayette City Coal Works, Appellant, v. Noah Behanna, George Hupp, John H. Wilson, Charles Wilson, Jr., Michael O'Neil, Robert I. Johnson, William Johnson, John Biles, J. N. Furlong, William T. Spalter, Jacob Carr, Frank Lowers, Link Lowers, Hugh McDonald, James McPherson, Thomas Haywood, Frank Bruce, James A. Jacobs, Charles Jacobs, Frank Jacobs and Paul Lamak

No. 69

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

July 15, 1897

Argued May 11, 1897

Appeal, No. 69, Jan. T., 1897, by plaintiff, from decree of C.P. Fayette Co., No. 187, in equity. Reversed.

Bill in equity for an injunction against strikers, and to recover damages for injuries caused by the alleged illegal conduct of strikers.

The case was referred to W. F. Johnson, Esq., as master, who reported in favor of dismissing the bill.

The court, in an opinion by EWING, P.J., sustained certain exceptions to the master's report, and imposed part of the costs on part of the defendants, but allowed plaintiff no damages. The opinion was as follows:

This proceeding was instituted with a twofold purpose, viz: first to enjoin the defendants from interfering with, obstructing and preventing the employment of miners at the Fayette City Coal Works and the operation of said works, and, secondly, to recover from the defendants damages alleged to have been sustained in consequence of their unlawful acts. The master has found against the plaintiff upon both these points and recommended the dismissal of the bill at plaintiff's cost. Of this action the plaintiff now complains, and excepts both to the findings of fact and the legal conclusions of the master.

Very careful and repeated examinations of the testimony have shown that there is merit in some of the exceptions relative to the facts of the case. The master has reported that, while the defendants were combined and engaged in an effort to prevent the operation of said works at reduced wages to the miners they yet conducted their contest in a perfectly legal orderly and peaceable manner. But the testimony certainly establishes the fact that certain of the defendants overstepped these bounds, and used annoyance, intimidation, ridicule and coercion to prevent new men from engaging in work for the plaintiff. When the new men were followed and importuned not to work from their point of embarkation to their destination, and there met by the strikers in considerable numbers and followed to their lodging places, all the time being pressed and entreated to return, and called "scabs" and "blacklegs," and sometimes surrounded and the effort made to pull them away, an unfriendly (at least) atmosphere about everywhere, it must be admitted that there was something more than mere argument and persuasion, and the orderly and legitimate conduct of a strike. This was certainly serious annoyance and well calculated to intimidate and coerce. And that effect was apparently produced on more than one occasion. Nor did such acts entirely end when the men imported actually began work, but such men were, on occasions and in a less public manner, approached in a like manner in their intervals of labor, and advised that there would be trouble there, and they had better leave, etc. No actual violence, however, was employed, and the evident determination of the defendants was to abstain from and prevent the employment of physical force. But, until the hearing on the 11th of March, 1893, some believed they could do almost anything in the furtherance of their plans except that; and, to their credit be it said, after they were advised to the contrary on that day, they appear to have refrained from any action, although still intent upon their original purpose to which any just exception can be taken. Their mistake was in not having fully acquainted themselves as to the extent they could lawfully go in the first instance.

But the unlawful acts mentioned were not participated in nor abetted by all the defendants, and all, although present on one or more occasions, should not be held responsible therefor. For the avowed purpose of the strikers was to maintain their rights and position wholly within legal lines, and this they insisted upon; and that some of the more zealous of their number went beyond that mark without any common consent or understanding, should not, under the circumstances, militate against the more conservative of their number who refrained from any act and any participation in and encouragement of any act of intimidation or coercion disclosed by the testimony. No stress can be properly laid on the fact of the presence of these parties or any of them at the landing when the importations arrived, for it must be remembered that in small towns people are prone to congregate about depots and wharves at train and boat times, and particularly so when large proportions of the citizens are idle. Curiosity leads many at times to places when they would better stay away, but they are not for that reason to be regarded as implicated in all the disorder that may there occur. Nor are all the parties together engaged in a lawful purpose, to be avowedly accomplished in a lawful manner, to be visited with the unauthorized and illegal acts of their associates, although committed in the prosecution of the common work. Moreover, those of the defendants shown by the testimony to have engaged in these acts of intimidation, etc., were evidently the leading spirits in the active work, and it is proper that they, rather than the rank and file, should account for what may have been done that should have been left undone, and for which they are peculiarly responsible.

The defendants proved to have thus intimidated and coerced, and annoyed and ridiculed the men brought to labor at these coal works are Noah Behanna, George Hupp, Michael O'Neil, Robert I. Johnson, Wm. Johnson, Wm. T. Spalter, Jacob Carr, James McPherson and Thomas Haywood. One or two of the others may be equally involved, but the testimony is not satisfactory as to them. Of those above named only one, Noah Behanna, requires any special mention. He was a policeman in Fayette City at the time, and it was peculiarly his duty, not only to strictly abstain from any participation in this trouble, and most particularly from aiding and abetting in the acts of intimidation, etc., but actively and positively to protect and screen the new men from any and all such attacks. Instead of that he is shown to have encouraged the strikers in all their acts, to have himself advised new men to leave, and predicted trouble if they did not, and on every occasion to have thrown his influence and that of his office actively against the new men and in behalf of the old. That his sympathy was on the side of the strikers is not to be wondered at, but he had no more right than have we to permit that to influence him in the discharge of his plain duty, much less to allow it to induce him to participate in illegal acts. His office should have alone dictated his course.

On the question of damages the master is clearly right for various reasons. In the first place, these works are owned not by Margaret O'Neil, the sole plaintiff, alone, but by her and Colonel O'Neil (whoever he may be) as shown by the testimony and defendants' brief, so that any damages are not the right of the plaintiff alone. She is the principal owner, but not the sole owner, and it does not appear that the other owner is even advised of this proceeding. But apart from that, part, and by far the greater part, of the claim for damages is so preposterous as to be wholly devoid of merit, and the remainder is not so proved and shown as to put it in any shape to be understood and ascertained. It must be remembered that in September, 1892, a reduction in wages was made at these works, and that the miners were not willing to accept said reduction, and they quit work in a body. No effort was made to supply their places or start the works until February, 1893, and yet the plaintiff claims heavy damages from these defendants for loss of trade and injury to the mines, etc., when idle, simply because the miners saw fit to refuse to labor at the reduction made in their wages. And of the defendants named as having intimidated, etc., the new men brought there in February, 1893, only one of them, Michael O'Neil, was working for the plaintiff in September, 1892, when the reduction was refused and the works stopped, and some of the others had never worked there. The men had a perfect legal right to refuse to work at the reduction, and if, in consequence, the works were injured and trade lost it is damnum absque injuria, nothing more. The remainder of the claim is for expenses in obtaining new men and bringing them to the works, for boarding them there and for the cost of employing police and deputy sheriffs, etc., in February and March, 1893. It might be that for expenses incurred in bringing in new men who were driven away by illegal conduct of the defendants, and for the cost of peace officers whose presence was required by like conduct of the defendants, the owners of these works would be entitled to recover as against the defendants guilty of such conduct; but for boarding their employees and the expenses of those who remained, etc., there can be no valid claim. And yet all these matters are bunched together in the bills presented, and aggregated with items for advertising for miners and similar charges, so that it is impossible to identify any expense or item of damage in connection with the illegal acts from the testimony, in order to warrant a finding that it was occasioned by any particular act of any defendant, or the...