Ramsey v. United Mine Workers of America
Decision Date | 26 September 1969 |
Docket Number | No. 17878,17879.,17878 |
Citation | 416 F.2d 655 |
Parties | George RAMSEY et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. UNITED MINE WORKERS OF AMERICA, Defendant-Appellee. TENNESSEE PRODUCTS & CHEMICAL CORPORATION, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. UNITED MINE WORKERS OF AMERICA, Defendant-Appellee. |
Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit |
Edward L. Carey, Harrison Combs, Willard Owens, Washington, D. C., E. H. Rayson, Knoxville, Tenn., M. E. Boiarsky, Charleston, W.Va., for appellee.
John A. Rowntree, Knoxville, Tenn., Van Deveer, Brown, Siener & Walker, Sizer Chambliss, Chattanooga, Tenn., A. Allan Kelly, Kelly & Cameron, William M. Ables, Jr., South Pittsburg, Tenn., for appellants.
Before PHILLIPS, Chief Judge, and WEICK, O'SULLIVAN, EDWARDS, CELEBREZZE, PECK, McCREE and COMBS, Circuit Judges.
ON REHEARING EN BANC
After consideration of these appeals by a panel of this court, rehearing en banc was granted. Upon rehearing, the court was evenly divided as to affirmance or reversal of the District Court. Accordingly, the judgment of the District Court stands affirmed. The opinions of Judge EDWARDS for affirmance and Judge O'SULLIVAN for reversal, respectively are filed with this order.
EDWARDS, Circuit Judge, with whom PHILLIPS, Chief Judge, and PECK and COMBS, Circuit Judges, concur. These cases are on appeal from judgments entered in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee, Southern Division, which dismissed the joint complaints of plaintiffs-appellants coal operators against defendant-appellee United Mine Workers.
They are the latest appeals in this circuit which present the conflicts between the national policy opposing trusts and monopolies (Sherman Antitrust Act §§ 1 and 2, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1, 2 (1964)), and the national policy favoring collective bargaining (National Labor Relations Act § 1, 29 U.S.C. § 151 (1964); Norris-La-Guardia Act §§ 1, 2 and 5, 29 U.S.C. §§ 101, 102, 105 (1964); Clayton Antitrust Act §§ 6 and 20, 15 U.S.C. § 17 (1964), 29 U.S.C. § 52 (1964)). Plaintiffs are coal operators in southeastern Tennessee who allege that defendant, United Mine Workers of America, entered into a national conspiracy with certain major coal producers to create a monopoly, to suppress competition, and to drive plaintiffs (and other marginal operators) out of business.
At the outset we note that of all the major coal companies, whose economic interests defendant is alleged to have conspired to serve, none were joined as co-defendants at trial.
In all controlling respects the issues presented by these appeals are identical with the major issues in the Pennington cases which have been the subject of original trial, judgment, and affirmance by this court, Pennington v. United Mine Workers, 325 F.2d 804 (6th Cir. 1963) reversal and remand by the United States Supreme Court, Pennington v. United Mine Workers, 381 U.S. 657, 85 S.Ct. 1585, 14 L.Ed.2d 626 (1965), retrial and judgment, Lewis v. Pennington, 257 F.Supp. 815 (E.D.Tenn.1966), and affirmance of judgment on retrial by this court, Lewis v. Pennington, 400 F. 2d 806 (6th Cir. 1968), cert. denied, 393 U.S. 983, 89 S.Ct. 450, 21 L.Ed.2d 444 (1968). The opinions of Justice White in the Supreme Court remand of Pennington, of Judge Peck in the latest consideration of Pennington by this court, and the opinion of Judge Wilson, who tried these cases without a jury and entered thorough findings of fact and carefully reasoned conclusions of law, Ramsey v. United Mine Workers, 265 F. Supp. 388 (E.D.Tenn.1967), should serve to foreshorten our appellate consideration.
Appellants present three questions before this court:
Only the last two of these questions are pertinent to decision of the instant appeals. And we decline the invitation to write an advisory opinion on the first question seeking to interpret or expand on the views of the United States Supreme Court, as particularly expressed in Pennington v. United Mine Workers, 381 U.S. 657, 85 S.Ct. 1585 (1965); Allen Bradley Co. v. Local 3, IBEW, 325 U.S. 797, 65 S.Ct. 1533, 89 L.Ed. 1939 (1945), and United States v. Hutcheson, 312 U.S. 219, 61 S.Ct. 463, 85 L.Ed. 788 (1941).
The second issue requires us to determine whether or not the Supplemental Agreement of 1958 (the Protective Wage Clause) between the Bituminous Coal Operators Association (BCOA) and the United Mine Workers of America (UMW) constituted an express or per se violation of the antitrust laws. The specific language complained of follows:
Defendant sought to persuade the District Court, and now seeks to persuade us, that this language taken in the historic context of the bargaining relationship constitutes an express undertaking by defendant to impose the BCOAUMW wage scale on all nonsignatory coal operators in order to force some (including plaintiffs) out of business.
We simply do not find language to support this contention. The italicized portions of the disputed agreement clearly indicate that it is expressly limited in its effect to its signatories.
Further, as Judge Peck recently pointed out for this court:
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