Newell v. Chauffeurs, Teamsters & Helpers Local Union 795

• Decision Date: 09 November 1957
• Docket Number: No. 40486,40486
• Citation: 181 Kan. 898,317 P.2d 817
• Parties: Richard NEWELL, d/b/a EI Dorado Dairy, Appellee, v. CHAUFFEURS, TEAMSTERS & HELPERS LOCAL UNION 795; S. E. Smith and the agents, servants, employees and attorneys of any of said defendants, Appellants.
• Court: Kansas Supreme Court

Page 817

317 P.2d 817

181 Kan. 898

Richard NEWELL, d/b/a EI Dorado Dairy, Appellee, v. CHAUFFEURS, TEAMSTERS & HELPERS LOCAL UNION 795; S. E. Smith and the agents, servants, employees and attorneys

of any of said defendants, Appellants.

No. 40486.

Supreme Court of Kansas.

Nov. 9, 1957.

Rehearing Denied Dec. 18, 1957.

See 319 P.2d 171.

Syllabus by the Court.

1. Where application for relief is made in a state court concerning an unfair labor practice and the jurisdiction of the state is challenged, it is held that the findings of the trial court, upon the uncontroverted evidence in the case as more particularly set forth in the opinion, that the business out of which the labor dispute arose does not appreciably affect interstate commerce and that the National Labor Relations Board does not have jurisdiction, are supported by the evidence upon the ground that under all the facts and circumstances presented by the record the purchase of items from sources outside the state (to the extent of $100 per month) are negligible under the maxim de minimis non curat lex, and such findings are not erroneous as a matter of law.

2. Congress has vested exclusive jurisdiction in the National Labor Relations Board and empowered it to prevent any person from engaging in any unfair labor practice affecting (interstate) commerce. Whether an unfair labor practice, which is either protected or prohibited by the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, and by the state statutes, affects (interstate) commerce is a question of fact upon which jurisdiction rests. An application for relief in a state court concerning an unfair labor practice empowers the state court to determine this question of fact from the evidence where state jurisdiction is challenged.

3. The test to determine whether the National Labor Relations Board has jurisdiction of an unfair labor practice is not the volume of the interstate commerce which may be affected, but the evidence of such a relationship between the employer and his employees to the commerce that an unfair labor practice would lead or tend to lead to a labor dispute burdening or obstructing the free flow of commerce. The power granted by Congress to the National Labor Relations Board must be considered in the light of our dual system of government and may not be extended so as to embrace effects upon interstate commerce so indirect and remote that to embrace them would effectually obliterate the distinction between what is national and what is local and create a completely centralized government.

4. A labor dispute between an employer and employees does not burden or obstruct the free flow of interstate commerce merely because, in the purchase of capital assets such as dairy processing equipment, trucks and an adding machine from local sources long prior to the labor dispute, such assets were originally manufactured in another state, where in the operation of a dairy business all dairy products were purchased locally, processed locally and sold locally.

5. Picketing as a means of peaceful and truthful publicity has been justified under the constitutional guarantee of the right of free speech, but when the picketing goes beyond this purpose to induce action of one kind or another, quite irrespective of the nature of the ideas which are being disseminated, it is no longer entitled to protection as a constitutional guarantee of free speech.

6. Though Union employees may have a legal right to strike and picket the employer's place of business in a peaceable manner, where the lawful purposes of picketing are entangled with acts of intimidation and threatened use of force, the picketing in its entirety becomes tainted with coercion, which is an unlawful purpose of picketing, and may be enjoined.

7. Where pickets, under circumstances set forth in Syllabus No. 6, and a Union official resort to the photographing, or pretense of photographing, patrons and nonunion employees of an employer's business who ignore the picket line, such conduct represents acts of intimidation and threatened use of force against such individuals and the employer. They are unlawful coercive pressures designed for the ultimate purpose of strangulating the employer's business unless he succumbs to the Union's demands.

8. Where a labor dispute exists between an employer and a Labor Union, acts and conduct of the Labor Union designed to boycott the employer's business are unlawful under G.S.1955 Supp., 44-809a(1), and may be permanently enjoined.

9. G.S.1955 Supp., 44-814, gives rise to a statutory cause of action for injunctive relief against any person who violates the provisions of Chapter 44, Article 8 of the Kansas statutes, and may be invoked by any party aggrieved.

10. Where a labor controversy is attended by peaceful picketing and by unlawful intimidation and threats which are coercive, and the unlawful coercive pressures have been such that continuation of the picketing, though peaceable, will operate to revive the coercive pressures by exciting fear that such coercive pressures will be resumed, a permanent injunction forbidding the picketing as well as the coercive conduct does not infringe constitutional guarantees.

Russell Cranmer, Wichita, argued the cause, and Payne H. Ratner, Louise Mattox, Payne H. Ratner, Jr., Dale B. Stinson, Jr., Cliff W. Ratner, William L. Fry, A. Wayne Murphy, Bernard V. Borst, D. Clifford Allison, and Gerald D. Lasswell, Wichita, were with him on the briefs for appellants.

M. F. Litras, El Dorado, argued the cause, and R. C. Woodward and H. Pauline Woodward El Dorado, were with him on the briefs for appellee.

SCHROEDER, Justice.

This is an appeal from an order granting an employer a permanent injunction against a Labor Union for activities alleged to consist of unlawful picketing and boycotting the employer's dairy business in El Dorado, Kansas. The Union appeals to this court contending: (1) That the district court did not have jurisdiction of the subject matter of the action since it involved a labor dispute within the exclusive jurisdiction of the National Labor Relations Board, and (2) That even though the National Labor Relations Board would not take jurisdiction, the conduct of the Union was protected under the Federal law.

The appellee, Richard Newell, is the owner and operator of the El Dorado Dairy. He filed this action as plaintiff in the district court of Butler County, Kansas, against the Chauffeurs, Teamsters & Helpers Local Union 795; S. E. Smith and the agents, servants, employees and attorneys of any of said defendants, appellants herein.

The district court found generally for the appellee in granting the injunction, therefore, the facts disclosed by the evidence will be set forth most favorably to the appellee where the evidence conflicts. If it is assumed that there is state jurisdiction of the labor dispute in question, the judgment insofar as it is supported by the evidence, from which the trial court could find as it did and issue the permanent injunction, must stand.

The appellee employed Cleo A. Hodgens as a wholesale route driver, Orville A. Church as a retail route driver, and Bobby Dee Grant as a relief driver and also as helper on two dairy routes in El Dorado, Kansas. On July 14, 1955, these three employees authorized the appellant Union to represent them in negotiations with respect to wages, hours and conditions of employment with the appellee. Appellant, S. E. Smith, the president and business agent of the appellant Union, so notified Richard Newell on July 15, 1955, by registered letter. Smith further requested Newell to advise him whether or not Newell would recognize the Local Union 795 as the bargaining agent of the employees in the afore-stated job classifications, and further requested a meeting with Newell for the purpose of negotiating a working condition contract.

Newell received the letter from Smith on Saturday, July 16, 1955. Thereafter, Newell transferred the relief driver and helper to inside work. He took the wholesale driver for a ride but did not discuss the letter he had received from Smith. He then fired the retail driver, Church, on July 19, 1955. On the following day Smith received Newell's answering letter which informed Smith that he would be glad to discuss anything concerning the drivers and helpers. Smith then went to El Dorado and met with Newell. At the meeting Smith requested that the retail driver be put back to work and that Newell recognize the Union and commence negotiating a working condition contract. Newell refused to put Church back to work giving as his reason the inefficiency and carelessness with which Church had been performing his work. The discussion centered only around the employment of Church, Smith refusing to negotiate in any manner until Church was reinstated as an employee. Newell's attorney was on vacation at the time of the conference and Newell refused to make further commitments until such time as he had an opportunity to consult with his attorney. On this point Smith testified:

'* * * I asked him again if he wouldn't consider the reinstatement of Church and negotiate a contract. He told me without seeing his attorney that was his final answer. I told him 'I am satisfied if that is your final answer there will be a strike at your place Monday morning, July 25th'. I contacted the men and they requested I come and meet them at Orville Church's house.'

S. E. Smith and Mel Chance then met with Hodgens, Grant and Church at the latter's house in El Dorado, Kansas, on Saturday, July 23.

Picketing of the El Dorado Dairy started on Monday, July 25. They picketed every day except Sunday from 8:00 a. m., to 5:30 p. m. The employees, Hodgens, Church and Grant, picketed one at a time and walked back and forth in front of the appellee's dairy in the street about two feet from the curb. Each walked for thirty minutes and was then off for one hour, but usually remained in the vicinity, either across...