North East Texas Motor Lines v. Dickson

• Decision Date: 23 March 1949
• Docket Number: No. A-1742.,A-1742.
• Citation: 219 S.W.2d 795
• Parties: NORTH EAST TEXAS MOTOR LINES, Inc. v. DICKSON et al.
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

Page 795

219 S.W.2d 795

NORTH EAST TEXAS MOTOR LINES, Inc. v. DICKSON et al.

No. A-1742.

Supreme Court of Texas.

March 23, 1949.

Rehearing Denied May 11, 1949.

Error to Court of Civil Appeals of Fifth Supreme Judicial District.

Suit by North East Texas Motor Lines, Inc., against M. R. Dickson and others to enjoin the defendants from picketing plaintiff's place of business. An injunction restraining picketing was dissolved by the Court of Civil Appeals, 210 S.W.2d 660, and the plaintiff brings error.

Judgment of Court of Civil Appeals reversed so far as it dissolved injunction against picketing and otherwise affirmed.

Phinney, Romick & Hallman, Carl L. Phinney and Charles Romick, all of Dallas, for petitioner.

Mullinax, Wells & Ball and L. N. D. Wells, Jr., all of Dallas, and Combs & Dixie, of Houston, for respondents.

HICKMAN, Chief Justice.

In this suit filed by petitioner North East Texas Motor Lines, Inc., a permanent injunction was issued in the trial court against a labor organization, referred to in the record as Local No. 745, Teamsters Union, A. F. of L., its officers and representatives, certain individual employees or former employees of the plaintiff, and a number of truck lines which had been doing business with the plaintiff. The truck line defendants did not appeal, and so no notice will be taken in this opinion of the injunction in so far as it affects them. The union, its officers and representatives, and four of the employees or former employees of the plaintiff appealed to the Court of Civil Appeals, Fifth District, at Dallas. That court dissolved the injunction in so far as it forbade the picketing of plaintiff's place of business, but upheld it in all other respects. 210 S.W.2d 660.

Since in our view the controlling question for decision here relates to the correctness of the judgment of the Court of Civil Appeals dissolving the injunction against picketing, our statement of the case will bear directly upon that question. The respondents did not request findings of fact by the trial court, but chose to appeal without having the benefit of such findings. We must, therefore, presume that the trial court resolved every disputed fact issue in favor of petitioner, the winning party, and must consider only the evidence which supports its judgment, disregarding all evidence in conflict therewith. That rule is so elementary and well established that it does not call for the citation of authorities in its support. In the light of that rule we consider the record before us.

North East Texas Motor Lines, Inc., is a Texas corporation, a common carrier of freight in Texas and Oklahoma under permits from the Interstate Commerce Commission and the Texas Railroad Commission. It carries about 300,000 pounds of freight each day, and has contracts and interchange agreements with eighteen truck lines. It employs between 130 and 165 persons to keep in operation its 92 trucks and service more than 5,000 customers.

On September 16, 1946, eleven persons employed by the petitioner in the pick up and delivery service of its Dallas terminal authorized, in writing, Local 745 to represent them as collective bargaining agent. The employees were not members of this or any other union, although petitioner's managers had theretofore informed its employees that they could join any union that they desired. The next morning after these eleven employees authorized Local 745 to represent them, J. L. Robinson, president of petitioner corporation, received at his office in Paris, Texas, a long distance telephone call from R. M. Dickson at Dallas. Mr. Dickson is assistant business agent of Local 745, and is a party to this suit. According to Robinson, Dickson told him that he was an officer in the union, that he had signed up two-thirds of petitioner's employees, and wanted to know whether Robinson would sign a contract. To quote from Robinson's testimony:

"I said, `Well, I don't know; I don't think so, but' — well, he said, `I will come over; can I come over and talk to you?' And I said `Sure you can. I will be glad to have you.' Well, he didn't come over.

"Q. Did he tell you what kind of a contract it was? A. Well, no; it was a union contract.

"Q. Well, a union contract? A. Yes, sir.

"Q. Did he ever send you a copy of this contract? A. He didn't.

"Q. Did he ever come over? A. No, sir."

Dickson never appeared in Paris; instead, on the next morning, September 18, 1946, the eleven employees above mentioned walked off their jobs after signing in to work for the day, and pickets were stationed around petitioner's Dallas terminal. These pickets carried signs reading, "North East Texas Motor Lines unfair to Teamsters Union A. F. of L." At the same time, union representatives notified all truck lines with which the union had contracts that the petitioner was on the "unfair list." The consequences were that those employees of other truck lines with which petitioner had interchange agreements who were members of the union refused to cross the picket line or to handle goods being transferred to petitioner by other truck lines or by petitioner to other truck lines. As a result, petitioner's business at its Dallas terminal decreased 90 per cent. the first day that picketing began. None of the employees had ever made any demand for shorter hours, better wages, or improved working conditions.

Upon the foregoing state of facts the trial court found, in its judgment, "that no bona fide labor dispute existed between plaintiff and labor union defendants, that plaintiff has suffered damages by reason of the acts and conduct of said labor union defendants, and will suffer irreparable damages unless the injunctive relief hereinafter set out is granted to plaintiff by this Court; and that upon the pleadings and evidence in this case the plaintiff is entitled to the injunctive relief as hereinafter set out." A part of the relief granted in the injunction was that the respondents "are hereby restrained and enjoined from establishing and maintaining a picket or pickets at or near plaintiff's place of business in the City of Dallas, Texas, at or near the...