Portland Terminal Co. v. Foss

• Decision Date: 29 July 1922
• Docket Number: 848.
• Parties: PORTLAND TERMINAL CO. v. FOSS et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Maine

283 F. 204

PORTLAND TERMINAL CO. v. FOSS et al.

No. 848.

United States District Court, D. Maine, Southern Division.

July 29, 1922

William A. Connellan and Nathan W. Thompson, both of Portland, Me for respondents.

Edw. W Wheeler, of Brunswick, Me., and Chas. H. Blatchford and George E. Fogg, both of Portland, Me., for Maine Cent. R. Co.

HALE District Judge.

The matter now before the court is a motion for a preliminary injunction, the purpose of which is to continue in force a restraining order heretofore granted. This involves the consideration of the rights and duties of the parties under the Transportation Act of 1920 (41 Stat. 456).

The suit upon which the motion is based arises under the laws of the United States. The complainant is a carrier in interstate commerce, engaged in the operation of a railroad. The defendants are its employes; they are members of an organization known as the Brotherhood of Railroad Station Employes.

After setting out the usual formal and jurisdictional facts, the bill alleges that the United States Railroad Labor Board was duly established under the Transportation Act of 1920; that under this act, these complainants and defendants, acting under the name of the Brotherhood of Railroad Station Employes, entered into an agreement, effective December 16, 1921, and February 1, 1922, and with an addendum of March 8, 1922; that such agreement is still in force; that on March 21, 1922, the Brotherhood of Railroad Station Employes requested a conference with the complainant for revision of certain rules in the agreement; that on April 5, 1922, this conference was had between the complainant and the representatives of the Brotherhood; that the parties failed to reach an agreement, and failed to decide the dispute; there being no adjustment board, as provided in the Transportation Act, the Brotherhood of Railroad Station Employes referred the dispute to the United States Railroad Labor Board, under the provision of the Transportation Act; and in pursuance of the rules of practice of the Labor Board the plaintiff submitted its reply to the application; hearing was had thereon on June 21, 1922; said dispute was fully submitted to said Labor Board for its decision; up to the filing of the bill no decision had been rendered by the Labor Board upon the dispute; that, in conformity with the Transportation Act, the plaintiff has paid its employes, first, the wages or salaries established under federal control, as provided in section 312 of the act; second, it has paid its said employes in accordance with agreements made with its said employes or applicable decisions of the Labor Board under the Transportation Act, and it is now paying its employes in accordance with the decisions of the Labor Board effective July 1, 1922; these decisions are No. 1074 and No. 1028 and addendum No. 1 to decision No. 1028; that, on July 7, 1922, Thomas C. Foss, Chairman of Division 15, Board of Adjustment, Brotherhood of Railroad Station Employes, gave notice to the complainant, requesting it to restore the rates of pay that were in effect prior to the last-named decisions of the Labor Board, and in pursuance of this notice the complainant arranged for a conference with the representatives of the Brotherhood on July 17, 1922; that complainant is ready to confer with the defendants relative to the subject-matter of the request, and is ready to exert every reasonable effort and adopt every available means to avoid interruption of the operation of the railroad growing out of a dispute between these parties; that, pending such conference, William C. Dow, secretary of the board, with the approval of Thomas C. Foss, chairman, issued and distributed to the members of the Brotherhood of Railroad Station Employes, of Division No. 15, a strike ballot. It is alleged on information and belief that the Brotherhood held a meeting on July 14, 1922, at which a vote was taken, showing a large majority of the membership of the Brotherhood voting 'yes' on the question of calling a strike.

Complainant further alleges that this action of the defendants, as above set forth, was in derogation of the duty of the defendants, under the Transportation Act, to use every reasonable effort and adopt every available means to avoid any interruption of the operation of the railroad, and constituted a potential threat to interrupt such operation; that it constituted a substantial threat to interrupt the carrying of persons, property, and mail in interstate commerce and under the terms of the Transportation Act.

Complainant alleges, further, that it was the duty of the defendants to exert every reasonable effort and adopt every available means to avoid interruption of the operation of the railroad, and that it was their duty, under the agreement, to continue their work, until the agreement should be duly changed pursuant to the provisions of the Transportation Act, and that it was their duty to remain under their wages, as given by the Labor Board, and unless changed in any manner provided by the Transportation Act, and that the action of the defendants was in violation of their agreement and of the decisions of the Labor Board; that such strike ballot was in derogation of their agreement; that it was a threat to interrupt the carrying of persons, property, and the United States mails in interstate commerce, against the provisions of the Transportation Act.

In its bill, complainant further refers to the fact that there is now a strike of certain employes in the shop crafts, and that on July 11th the President of the United States issued a proclamation, which is made a part of the bill, directing all persons to refrain from all interference with lawful efforts to maintain interstate transportation and the carrying of the United States mail.

The complainant says that the action of the defendants threatens to cause the plaintiff irreparable injury in its contract and property rights and in its business as a carrier, and to interrupt the carrying of persons, property, and the United States mail in interstate commerce; that the plaintiff is without adequate remedy at law; and that this equitable proceeding is its only remedy.

The case is submitted upon an agreed statement of facts. As a part of the facts complainant refers to the agreement between itself and its employes, including these defendants, which agreement is, by its terms, to be effective 'until it is changed as provided herein under the provisions of the Transportation Act of 1920. ' It offers the decisions of the Labor Board under this agreement and forming a substantial part of the agreement. It is assumed that the last of these decisions of the Labor Board somewhat reduces the wages of the defendants. The facts show a dispute duly submitted to the Labor Board, that no decision has been rendered in this dispute, and that at the present time the complainant is paying defendants wages in accordance with the decisions of the Labor Board, pending the settlement of the dispute.

Complainant says that the threatened strike order is in derogation of the Transportation Act and of the agreement which has been made under that act. It urges that, the defendants having by their agreement put themselves under the Transportation Act, it is their duty to remain under the wages which the Labor Board has given them, in pursuance of their contract, until those wages are changed under the terms of the Transportation Act.

The learned counsel for defendants urge that a court of equity cannot by injunction, under the circumstances, prevent an individual, alone or in concert with others, from quitting the personal service of another, and that these employes were not bound to follow the method of settling disputes marked out by the Transportation Act, but at any time could abandon their contract under the statute and pursue the strike remedy. They say, further, that their contract had in fact been terminated. They point to the late decision of the Supreme Court, in American Steel Foundries v. Tri-City Central Trades Council, 257 U.S. 184, 42 Sup.Ct. 72, 66 L.Ed. . . ., in which case, in speaking for the Supreme Court, Mr. Chief Justice Taft said:

'It is clear that Congress wished to forbid the use by the federal courts of their equity arm to prevent peaceful persuasion by employes, discharged or expectant, in promotion of their side of the dispute, and to secure them against judicial restraint in obtaining or communicating information in any place where there they might lawfully be. This introduces no new principle into the equity jurisprudence of those courts. It is merely declaratory of what was the best practice always. Congress thought it wise to stabilize this rule of action and render it uniform.'

The opinion further proceeds:

' * * * We must have every regard to the congressional intention manifested in the act and to the principle of existing law which it declared, that ex-employes and others properly acting with them shall have an opportunity, so far as is consistent with peace and law, to observe who are still working for the employer, to communicate with them and to persuade them to join the ranks of his opponents in a lawful economic struggle. Regarding as primary, the rights of the employes to work for whom they will, and, undisturbed by annoying importunity or intimidation of numbers, to go freely to and from their place of labor, and keeping in mind the right of the employer incident to his property and business to free access of such employes, what can be done to reconcile the conflicting interests?

'Each case must turn on its own circumstances. It is a case for the flexible remedial power of a court of equity, which may try one mode of restraint, and if it fails, or proves to be

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