New England Novelty Co. v. Sandberg
| Decision Date | 26 April 1944 |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
| Parties | NEW ENGLAND NOVELTY CO., INC. v. SAMUEL SANDBERG & others. |
March 3, 1942.
Present: FIELD, C.
J., DONAHUE, QUA & RONAN, JJ.
Contempt. Practice Civil, Exceptions: whether appropriate procedure; Contempt proceedings; Jury trial; Labor case.
Equity Pleading and Practice, Contempt proceedings, Jury trial, Labor case Injunction. Labor and Labor Union. Picketing. Words "Trial . . . by . . . jury," "At . . . the entrances," "Congregating.
"
Discussion by RONAN, J., of review of contempt proceedings, and of the scope of a "trial by jury."
A bill of exceptions is a proper method of bringing to this court questions of law arising at a trial by jury, under G. L (Ter. Ed.) c. 220,
Section 13A, inserted by St. 1935, c. 407, Section 5, of a proceeding for contempt for disobedience of an injunction issued in a suit in equity involving a labor dispute.
The propriety of the issuance and the terms of an injunction, if they are within the jurisdiction of the court granting it, are not open to question in a proceeding for contempt for disobedience of the injunction.
In an injunction against maintaining more than two pickets "at . . . the entrances" to a factory, those words meant at or near or in the vicinity of the entrances, and not merely the actual area or place "which makes up the entrances"; and there was a violation of the injunction where, in addition to two pickets stationed at each of the entrances, others walked to within five or six feet of the entrances and then walked away, or walked past the entrances and back again.
There might properly be found to have been a violation of an injunction in a labor case against "molesting, intimidating or threatening or preventing any person from" entering or leaving factory premises if pickets present at or near the entrances to the premises were of such a number as to intimidate or molest an ordinary person, although there was no evidence of violence or of threats of injury by the pickets.
At a jury trial of a proceeding for contempt for violation of an injunction in a labor case against "congregating" on streets adjacent to factory premises, there was no error in the refusal of a request presented by the alleged contemnors for a ruling that picketing did not constitute such congregating, the subject matter having been sufficiently covered by certain instructions to the jury as to the meaning of the word
"congregating" and as to the right of the alleged contemnors to picket.
BILL IN EQUITY, filed in the Superior Court on October 14, 1941. A preliminary injunction was entered which, in part, enjoined the defendants from occupied by the plaintiff and the Commonwealth Plastic Company on Adams Street and Cotton Street in Leominster; such premises; ; and which also contained the following clause:
On October 24, 1941, the plaintiff filed a petition that the defendants be adjudged in contempt for violation of the injunction, alleging in part that the defendants disobeyed its terms "(2) by maintaining over two pickets at the . . . [entrances] designated in . . . said preliminary injunction; (3) by doing acts intended and designed to molest, intimidate, threaten and prevent persons and employees from going to and from the premises . . .; (4) by congregating on Adams Street and Cotton Street . . .; (6) by interfering and attempting to interfere with and prevent present employees of the New England Novelty Company and Commonwealth Plastic Company from remaining in their employ and interfering with persons who desire to enter the employ of said New England Novelty Company and Commonwealth Plastic Company"; and that "in furtherance of said acts violative of said preliminary injunction, the said defendants have engaged in mass picketing, mass congregating on Adams Street and Cotton Street and for the purpose of intimidating, molesting or preventing persons or employees going to and from the premises of said companies or remaining in its employ or interfering with and preventing persons who desire to enter its employ from doing so."
The contempt petition was ordered tried by a jury, and was so tried before Brogna, J. Certain of the defendants' requests for rulings were as follows: St. 1935, c. 407, Section 4,
Portions of the charge to the jury were as follows: ". . . I better explain to you the meaning of the phrase, -- at each of the entrances . . . the contention of the defendants being that `at each of the entrances' means that area or that location, or that place which makes up the entrances, whether it is six feet wide, ten feet wide, or whatever it is and that, therefore, this injunction did not stretch out and reach any picketing outside of that six feet, eight feet, ten feet area called the entrance or entrances . . . . Gentlemen, the word `at' again has received judicial interpretation several times. It has been determined and interpreted as not being a definite word, but rather an indefinite word; and in order to interpret it it is necessary to read it with its background, with the rest of the injunction, and having in mind the purpose which the injunction as a whole intended to accomplish. I, therefore, say to you as a matter of law, that entrance does not restrict it to that area six or eight or ten feet width; that it means at or near, it means that area in the vicinity of, it means at or about. In the vicinity of, near or about, of course, could not take in a distance which was not intended by the wording of the injunction to be included in it. . . . What he [the judge who entered the injunction] was trying to accomplish was to protect the union and its members in their lawful right to picket; that is by peaceful persuasion, in an orderly manner; and at the same time to protect the rights of those who did not want to go on strike and wanted to go to work by ordering, or entering a restraining order, injunction, in such a way and in such terms that these men who desire to work rather than strike would have a reasonable opportunity to go into and from their work in this plant without the molestation, without the intimidation, and I will come to what those mean later, of more than two men at each entrance. You see it would not accomplish the purpose if you had two men at each entrance, and then a hundred men six inches removed from the entrance, or six feet removed, or ten feet removed, or such distance as the men going to and from work would naturally have to go by, or run the gauntlet or numbers of men. . . .
"Those words, -- molesting, intimidating, threatening or preventing, are used in their ordinary significance such as you would use them in ordinary use. . . . To molest a person it is not necessary to touch him, or it is not necessary to call him vile names, or it is not necessary to threaten.
That is a threat touching is an assault and battery; molesting means to disturb, to vex, to pester. A person is disturbed if the ordinary, reasonable individual similarly situated would have been disturbed. You will notice, gentlemen, there is no evidence here that anyone was disturbed, or anyone was intimidated or anyone was threatened, so you might be saying to yourself, -- how can we decide anyone was molested, intimidated or disturbed. The law is that you do not pry into the mind of an individual to find out what his nervous system is or his intellect to find out how a thing reacts; you find out, you twelve ordinary men, from the acts that you find from this evidence, or words if any from this evidence were actually done or said, how they would have reacted in the mind of the ordinary individual in the community situated as these workers who were going in and out were situated, and if such reasonable individuals so situated were molested by what was done there or was said, or would have been molested, then there is a violation of the injunction as far as that term is concerned. Let us take the second one, `intimidate'. To intimidate, gentlemen, is to excite...
To continue reading
Request your trial