Nord v. Griffin

• Decision Date: 13 November 1936
• Docket Number: No. 5975.,5975.
• Citation: 86 F.2d 481
• Parties: NORD et al. v. GRIFFIN.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

86 F.2d 481 (1936)

NORD et al. v. GRIFFIN.^*

No. 5975.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

November 13, 1936.

Leo J. Hassenauer, of Chicago, Ill., for appellants.

Anan Raymond and Robert Z. Hickman, both of Chicago, Ill., for appellee.

Before EVANS and SPARKS, Circuit Judges, and LINDLEY, District Judge.

LINDLEY, District Judge.

Appellants are switch tenders, employed by Chicago Union Station Company, and members of the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen. Appellee is similarly employed but not a member of the Brotherhood.

Appellants seek to reverse a decree enjoining them, the Chicago Union Station Company and the National Railroad Adjustment Board, from enforcing an award of the Board rendered February 7, 1935, in favor of the Brotherhood against the Union Station Company. This award was entered as the result of a dispute arising over the interpretation and application of a schedule of regulations for the government of conductors, trainmen, and switch tenders and was to the effect that the granting of seniority standing to appellee on July 1, 1931, as of May 7, 1906, was erroneous and that his standing should be rated as of February 1, 1931, when he was transferred from his employment as car recorder to that of switch tender. Appellee was not a party to the proceedings and received no notice of the hearing upon which the award was based.

Appellee contended and the court found that he was directly interested in the controversy before the Board; that his right to seniority was a contract right, of which he had been deprived by an award in a proceeding to which he was not a party and of which he had no notice. Because it concluded that such an award, under such conditions, was in violation of appellee's rights under the Constitution, the District Court issued the injunction. Appellants, after obtaining a severance, prosecuted this appeal.

It is first contended that the court below was without jurisdiction, as the amount in controversy did not exceed the sum of value of $3,000.

The answer of the Union Station Company admits that appellee was entitled to remain in continuous employment until he reached the age of seventy, or, for the further period of eleven years; that if his seniority be fixed as determined by the award, appellee, as a junior tender, would receive no assignment to work. The evidence disclosed that appellee was paid the sum of $5.07 per day, twenty-six days per month; that he was in good health; and that he had passed the regular physical examination. His annual earnings were approximately $1,500. The evidence showed that the direct and unavoidable effect of the award was the loss of his employment, for, after the Board made its decision, the employer took away appellee's previously established seniority rights as directed and assigned him to the extra list. This meant, practically, no employment.

The right to earn a livelihood and to continue in employment unmolested by efforts to enforce void enactments or adjudications is entitled to protection, in the absence of an adequate remedy at law. Truax v. Raich, 239 U.S. 33, 36 S.Ct. 7, 60 L.Ed. 131, L.R.A.1916D, 545, Ann.Cas. 1917B, 283. Obviously the District Court was correct in concluding that the award deprived appellee of his property rights.

The value of the right involved is not to be measured by any item of expense, but rather by the value of the object to be gained. Thus in Glenwood Light Co. v. Mutual Light Co., 239 U.S. 121, 36 S.Ct. 30, 32, 60 L.Ed. 174, the court said: "We are unable to discern any sufficient ground for taking this case out of the rule applicable generally to suits for injunction to restrain a nuisance, a continuing trespass, or the like, viz., that the jurisdictional amount is to be tested by the value of the object to be gained by complainant. The object of the present suit is not only the abatement of the nuisance, but (under the prayer for general relief) the prevention of any recurrence of the like nuisance in the future. In Mississippi & Missouri Railroad Co. v. Ward, 2 Black, 485, 492, 17 L.Ed. 311, 314, it was said: `The want of a sufficient amount of damage having been sustained to give the Federal courts jurisdiction will not defeat the remedy, as the removal of the obstruction is the matter of controversy, and the value of the object must govern.'"

In Local No. 7 of Bricklayers', etc., Union v. Bowen (D.C.) 278 F. 271, 273, an injunction was sought to restrain certain officers of a labor union from putting into effect a sentence of judgment of the executive board suspending the plaintiffs from membership in the union. In granting the injunction, the court said: "Further, it is the settled rule that the amount in controversy in injunction suits is not the sum which the plaintiff might recover in a suit for the damage already sustained, but the amount or value of the right which the complainant seeks to protect from invasion, or of the object to be gained by the bill. Board of Trade of City of Chicago v. Cella Commission Co., 145 F. 29, 76 C.C.A. 28; Nashville, C. & St. L. Ry. Co. v. McConnell (C.C.) 82 F. 65; 11 Cyc. 878; ...