New England Wood Heel Co. v. Nolan

• Decision Date: 28 June 1929
• Parties: NEW ENGLAND WOOD HEEL CO. v. NOLAN et al.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

268 Mass. 191

167 N.E. 323

NEW ENGLAND WOOD HEEL CO.

v.NOLAN et al.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Essex.

June 28, 1929.

Appeal from Superior Court, Essex County; Wee, Judge.

Bill by the New England Wood Heel Company against John D. Nolan and others. Decree from plaintiff, and defendants appeal. Affirmed.F. W. Mansfield and E. R. Mansfield, both of Boston, for appellants.

J. J. Ryan, Jr., and J. P. Cleary, both of Haverhill, for appellee.

PIERCE, J.

This is a bill in equity by a manufacturing corporation, doing business in Haverhill, Mass., against eleven individual defendants in their personal capacity, and also as officers and members of a voluntary unincorporated association known as the Shoe Workers' Protective Union, District Council No. 1, and Local No. 11 of said District Council, to enjoin them and all other members of the Shoe Workers' Protective Union from interfering in any way with the business of the plaintiff by intimidating its employees, by inducing or seeking to induce them to cease their employment, by picketing or by their presence about the entrances to the premises of the plaintiff in such a manner that ingress and egress are prevented, delayed or otherwise interfered with, and from persuading or compelling its customers not to purchase goods from the plaintiff. The case comes before this court upon an appeeal of the defendants from a final decree granting, with some modifications, the relief prayed for in the bill of complaint. The trial judge made findings of fact which have their source in the testimony of witnesses contained in the record of this appeal, and from the admission of the defendants in their pleadings.

In substance the bill charges that the plaintiff had a working agreement with the Shoe Workers' Protective Union under which the plaintiff hired only members of said union as employees in its factory; that said agreement was in writing and expired by its own limitation on December 31, 1928; that before the expiration of the agreement the plaintiff notified Local No. 11 of District Council No. 1 of the union that it would not enter into any extension nor thereafter deal with the union in any regard; that the plaintiff now has no controversy or relationship with the defendants; that as of December 31, 1928, the plaintiff paid all its employees who were members of Local No. 11 in full for their services to and including December 31, 1928, and notified each of its said employees, none of whom was operating under any written agreement of employment, that it would not thereafter require their services; that since January 1, 1929, it has procured various workers for the operations necessary for the conduct of its business; that it has not attempted to negotiate with the union or with any of its subsidiary locals, and it has had no dealings with the union and desires none; that since January, 1929, certain defendants and other members of the union and of its various locals embraced in District Council No. 1 have attempted by promises, persuasion, coercion, threats and otherwise to induce various persons employed by the plaintiff to cease their employment; they have maintained picket lines in front of and about the plaintiff's premises during business hours, thereby interfering with the ingress and egress of its employees, and have sought by force of numbers to induce or compel said employees to cease their employment; that the certain defendants and various other members of the union and of its subsidiary locals have attempted to persuade or compel various firsm and corporations to whom the plaintiff has been selling its product, not to purchase goods from the plaintiff, and to return to it merchandise previously bought by them.

Upon the reported testimony and the pleadings the trial judge found that the working agreement under which the plaintiff's factory was operated as a closed shop during 1928 terminated on December 31, 1928; that negotiations for a new agreement for 1929 failed; that the plaintiff paid off its employees at the close of December 31, 1928, and notified the union that it proposed to operate its factory in 1929 as an open shop; that on December 28 and 31 the union duly sanctioned the calling of a strike in the plaintiff's factory unless the plaintiff made an agreement with the union on or before January 4; that a price list and agreement, not, however, calling for a closed shop, were submitted by the union's agent to the plaintiff's officers on January 2, and upon their declining to give the price list and agreement consideration or to deal further with the union, the strike was called; that no members of the union quit work at the factory upon the calling of the strike because no members of the union were then employed by the plaintiff; that since the calling of the strike the defendants have picketed the factory, accosted and in some measure interfered with those who have entered the plaintiff's employ on their way to and from the factory, and sought to induce and even to intimidate not only such employees as are members of the union but others who are not members of the union to quit their work; and that they have also brought to the attention of the manufacturers in Haverhill using the plaintiff's product, the fact that a strike is in progress at the plaintiff's factory. He ruled that upon all the evidence the strike called by the defendants at the plaintiff's factory is an unlawful strike.

To the contention of the defendants, set up in their answer, ‘that the plaintiff does not come into court with clean hands in that it had knowledge of the prior contract of members of the union not to enter into individual contracts of employments and notwithstanding such contracts maliciously induced said members to break them,’ the trial judge found ‘upon the evidence that the officers of the plaintiff hired such of its former employees known to them to be members of the Union as voluntarily sought employment, aware that such individual contracts of employment were in violation of their Union obligations.’ He stated: ‘But I am unable to find from the evidence that the plaintiff maliciously sought to procure or induce such members of the union to leave the union or otherwise to violate their union obligations.’

[2] It is settled law that questions of fact, as well as of law, may be raised on appeal; that it is the duty of the court in such a case to examine the evidence and make its own judgments of fact, giving due weight to the findings of the judge below and to the rule that, where the testimony before the trial judge is oral, his findings will not be upset unless plainly wrong. Cook v. Mosher, 243 Mass. 149, 153, 137 N. E. 299;Weinstein v. Miller, 249 Mass. 516, 520,114 N. E. 387;Needham Trust Co. v. Cookson, 251 Mass. 160, 163, 146 N. E. 268;Boston Safe Deposit & Trust Co. v. Wall, 254 Mass. 464, 469, 150 N. E. 220;Witherington v. Nickerson, 256 Mass. 351, 354, 152 N. E. 707. At the outset the question presented is, Was the conduct of the plaintiff such as to bar it from obtaining relief in a court of equity? Show v. Blount, 182 Mass. 489, 491, 65 N. E. 845; ...