New York, N. H. & H. R. Co. v. Jenkins

• Decision Date: 17 November 1954
• Citation: 122 N.E.2d 759,331 Mass. 720
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court
• Parties: The NEW YORK, NEW HAVEN & HARTFORD RAILROAD COMPANY v. Edward F. JENKINS and others.

Page 759

122 N.E.2d 759

331 Mass. 720

The NEW YORK, NEW HAVEN & HARTFORD RAILROAD COMPANY v. Edward F. JENKINS and others.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

Argued Feb. 2, 1954.

Decided Nov. 17, 1954.

Herbert Burstein, New York City, Edmund J. Moore and William Q. Keenan, Boston, for plaintiff.

Stephen J. D'Arcy, Jr., Boston, for defendants.

Before QUA, C. J., and LUMMUS, RONAN, WILKINS and WILLIAMS, JJ.

RONAN, Justice.

These are appeals from certain interlocutory decrees and from a final decree granting an injunction restraining the three named individual defendants and the other members of Local Union No. 25 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America from inducing or encouraging any person to refuse to load trailers or threatening or hindering any person or company from delivering trailers for transportation upon the plaintiff's flat cars, from entering the plaintiff's freight yard for said purpose, and from picketing the said yard for the purpose of preventing the loading or unloading of said trailers, and awarding damages to the plaintiff.

Upon the filing of the bill a temporary restraining order was issued ex parte and a preliminary injunction was granted after a hearing following the return of the order of notice. A single justice of this court, to whom the propriety of granting the injunction was reported, refused to set aside the injunction. The suit was then heard on the merits in the Superior Court upon oral evidence and, by agreement of the parties, upon a transcript of the evidence adduced at the hearing upon the return of the order of notice. A final decree followed granting injunctive relief and awarding damages.

The appeal from the final decree is here upon a report of the material facts and a transcript of the evidence, and opens up for our determination questions of law, fact, and discretion. We can find for ourselves facts in addition to those found by the trial judge and facts contrary to those found by him if we are convinced that his findings are plainly wrong. Trade Mutual Liability Ins. Co. v. Peters, 291 Mass. 79, 195 N.E. 900; Lowell Bar Association v. Loeb, 315 Mass. 176, 52 N.E.2d 27; 291 Washington St., Inc., v. School St. Liquors, Inc., 331 Mass. 150, 117 N.E.2d 809.

We now proceed to summarize briefly the facts.

The plaintiff is a railroad engaged in the carriage of passengers and the transportation of freight between places within and without the Commonwealth. It began in 1937 to transport trailers on flat cars between Boston and points outside the Commonwealth, principally to and from New York City. Trailers to be shipped from Boston were hauled into the plaintiff's Boston freight yard where they were detached from the tractors, left in the freight yard, and loaded upon the flat cars by employees of the New England Transportation Co. The business of Transporting trailers to and from New York has steadily increased. The plaintiff has purchased 200 flat cars especially designed for this service and these, together with the construction of ramps and other necessary structures, represent an investment of more than $3,000,000. The total receipts from this service in 1951 amounted to about $1,000,000 which was less than one per cent of the total receipts derived by the plaintiff from the operation of its entire system.

Local No. 25 is a voluntary trade association or union, and the three named individual defendants occupy the offices ascribed to them in the bill and fairly represent the remaining members of the union. The union has about 9,000 members and is comprised of those who are employed as operators or helpers upon trucks or tractors of motor carriers doing business in Boston and engaged in the transportation of goods within and without the Commonwealth. It has collective bargaining agreements with these motor carriers. These carriers transport freight over the road between Boston and New York, but in recent time they have been making more use of the rail service furnished by the plaintiff. The union has viewed with alarm this increased rail service as it deprived its members of work they otherwise would have had of driving the tractors with the trailers over the highways. In recent years drafts of collective bargaining agreements containing provisions restricting the use of rail transportation were submitted to the motor carriers for execution at the expiration of existing agreements, but the carriers refused to sign and the union agreed to the elimination of these provisions. The agreements were then executed. Agreements with the motor carriers in this form were in existence on the three days in July, 1952, hereinafter mentioned. Notwithstanding the attitude of the motor carriers in refusing to assent to a limitation of this rail transportation, representatives of the union conducted oral, collateral, and informal negotiations of uncertain content and doubtful import with some of the motor carriers seeking to restrict the use by the latter of the rail facilities furnished by the railroad. The union properly does not contend that such dealings resulted in any agreement of binding force and effect upon the motor carriers. They may have been undertaken by these representatives of the union to alleviate the tension within the union created by members who for some time had been insisting that rail transportation of trailers, commonly known in the transportation trade as 'piggyback trucking,' should be stopped or at least restricted. This subject was not included in the existing bargaining agreements, and we are satisfied that if the union desired a modification of the agreements it did not adopt the course outlined in the agreements to secure a modification. The relations between the motor carriers and the union concerning this mode of transportation had become unsteady and strained, but all parties were seemingly reluctant to force the issue. Finally on the late afternoons of July 11, 12, and 14, 1952, the defendants McCarthy and Norton, business agents of the union, took positions on the street near the entrance to the plaintiff's freight yard, stopped various tractors hauling trailers belonging to motor carriers who had collective bargaining agreements with the union, and ordered them to drive away from the freight yard, which the operators did. Some of the trailers of these motor carriers were already in the freight yard when McCarthy and Norton appeared, and were ready for loading, but they were not loaded because of the orders given by McCarthy and Norton to the employees of New England Transportation Co. These two union representatives were in the freight yard on one of these afternoons for a short period of time carrying out their purpose of preventing the rail transportation of the trailers. Their conduct at no time was disorderly or other than peaceful. Although it did not appear that McCarthy and Norton were acting under any direct or specific instructions from the union, the union seeks to justify their conduct on the ground that they were acting in its behalf in attempting to make more work available for its membership if the rail transportation was prevented or restricted. The motor carriers are not parties to this suit.

The New England Transportation Co., a corporation, hereinafter called New England, is 'a subsidiary' of the railroad. Nothing more definite of its relationship to the railroad appears. Trailers are left in the freight yard by the motor carriers and are loaded upon the flat cars by employees of New England and are fastened to the cars by employees of the mechanical department of the railroad. The reverse process is used on inbound trailers. The employees of New England are members of the union. New England has a collective bargining agreement with the union, but it has no contract with the motor carriers.

Injunctive Relief.

The parties in the present suit from the outset have recognized that the crucial question is the jurisdiction of the Superior Court to grant injunctive relief. Shortly before the bill of complaint was filed in the instant case, the United States District Court had dismissed, after an ex parte hearing, a bill filed by the railroad. The last amendment to the bill filed in the Superior Court was based upon In re Washington-Oregon Shingle Weavers' District Council, 101 N.L.R.B. 1159, ¹ but we need not analyze that decision as we see nothing in it that tends to support the railroad's contention that the Superior Court had jurisdiction to restrain a violation of the secondary boycott provisions of the National Labor Relations Act, § 8(b)(4) (A), as amended by the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, U.S.C. (1946 ed.) Sup. V, Title 29, § 158(b)(4)(A) [29 U.S.C.A. § 158(b)(4)(A)]. The railroad has now abandoned that contention but still contends that it is entitled to relief under the statutes and decisions of this Commonwealth.

One of the principal contentions of the union is that the subject matter of this suit comes within the exclusive jurisdiction of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, U.S.C. (1946 ed.) Title 29, § 151 et seq., as amended by the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, U.S.C. (1946 ed.) Sup. V, Title 29, § 141 et seq. [29 U.S.C.A. § 141 et seq.], the Taft-Hartley Act so called, hereinafter referred to as L.M.R.A. The union upon the facts found urges that it has engaged in a secondary boycott against the railroad in violation of § 158(b)(4)(A) of said Title 29. The railroad was a neutral employer and so was New England. The union argues that L.M.R.A. has prempted the field and that there is no room for the operation of the laws of the Commonwealth to enjoin this secondary boycott. Bethlehem Steel Co. v. New York State Labor Relations Board, 330 U.S. 767, 67 S.Ct. 1026, 91 L.Ed. 1234; La Crosse Telephone Corp. v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Board, 336 U.S. 18, 69 S.Ct. 379, 93 L.Ed. 463; Plankinton Packing Co. v....