Randolph v. Missouri-Kansas-Texas R. Co.

• Decision Date: 22 November 1946
• Docket Number: No. 4211.,4211.
• Parties: RANDOLPH et al. v. MISSOURI-KANSAS-TEXAS R. CO. et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Missouri

68 F. Supp. 1007

RANDOLPH et al. v. MISSOURI-KANSAS-TEXAS R. CO. et al.

No. 4211.

District Court, W. D. Missouri, W. D.

October 28, 1946.

Supplemental Opinion November 22, 1946.

Clif Langsdale and Clyde Taylor, both of Kansas City, Mo., for plaintiff.

Cooper, Neel, Sutherland & Rogers, of Kansas City, Mo., G. H. Penland and M. E. Clinton, both of Dallas, Tex., and C. S. Burg and Carl S. Hoffman, both of St. Louis, Mo., for defendants Missouri-Kansas-Texas R. Co. and Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad Co. of Texas.

Tucker, Murphy & Wilson, of Kansas City, Mo., for defendant Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen.

REEVES, District Judge.

Whatever the designation of the motions or other pleadings filed by the defendants in the above entitled cause, the pervading thought is that the court is without jurisdiction. It is the opinion of able counsel that the questions involved are subject to determination under the Railway Labor Act, 45 U.S.C.A. § 151 et seq., and by various administrative tribunals created thereby.

A proper approach to the solution of the question requires a statement of essential parts of the pleadings and the relief sought. Reference may be also properly made to the original answers and supplemental answers filed by the corporate defendants.

Unless the case belongs to the tribunals created by the Railway Labor Act, then this court would have jurisdiction in so far as the diversity of citizenship and amount in controversy are concerned. The complaint details a complete diversity of citizenship and states an amount in controversy clearly within the jurisdiction of the court. No part of the complaint will yield a reasonable deduction of a lack of diversity of citizenship or an inadequate amount in controversy. Furthermore, the averments of the complaint appropriately contain all the indicia of a class action so that it may be, in the consideration thereof, treated as such.

The plaintiffs are officers and members of a labor organization known as the "Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, Train, Chair Car, Coach Porters and Attendants," as well as a local union of said brotherhood. The local union is composed of porters, who are members of the general organization employed by the two corporate defendants.

It is averred by the plaintiffs that by a long established and continued custom, as well as by mutual contract, they have acquired specified valuable rights and privileges, and that same have been and are now recognized by the corporate defendants as valuable and subsisting rights and privileges and that their functions and duties as train porters are not confined to the loading and unloading of passengers, assisting with their luggage, and attending to their comfort, but, that, in addition thereto, they perform by custom and contract certain duties appertaining to the actual movement of trains and for which duties the plaintiffs have for a long time been compensated and are entitled to such compensation by written contract as well as by said custom and usage.

A written contract to the above effect was actually made and entered into between the plaintiffs and corporate defendants on December 3, 1928. With certain modifications and constructions, not material here, it is averred that said contract is still in force.

It is further charged by the plaintiffs that, notwithstanding such contract and agreement, the corporate defendants have threatened and are now threatening to breach and abrogate said contract and claim that they are forced to do so by the fraud, duress, threats and undue influence made and threatened to be continued by the defendants Railroad Trainmen, who have demanded and are now demanding that the rights and privileges and remuneration vouchsafed to the plaintiffs by said contract and long continued custom be taken away from the plaintiffs and that the said plaintiffs be deprived of the benefits of said custom and agreement.

The corporate defendants, by their several answers, in effect admit the long-standing custom, agreement and written contract between them and the plaintiffs and the benefits accruing to plaintiffs by reason thereof. They further admit that a deprivation of the rights heretofore enjoyed by the plaintiffs would mean the reduction in wages paid plaintiffs and a restriction in the number of employees belonging to plaintiffs' class. Moreover, the said corporate defendants further say that it is and has been their desire to maintain the status quo and to observe and carry out their obligations under the contract and agreement with the plaintiffs but that they are menaced by their co-defendants who demand the withholding and the taking away of certain duties and functions heretofore performed by and belonging to the plaintiffs, and that same be assigned to and become a part of the duties of the individual defendants and for which they, and not the plaintiffs, would receive remuneration. It is further alleged by the corporate defendants that such demands by their co-defendants are and were so compelling as to force them to seek the modification of the long continued custom and contract with the plaintiffs. In their several answers the corporate defendants endeavor to bring themselves within the provisions of the Railway Labor Act, and it is for that reason, believing, as they apparently do, that the Railway Labor Act applies, that they aver that this court is without jurisdiction to hear and decide the controversy.

Other facts, if they become pertinent, will be stated in the course of this memorandum opinion.

1. By their complaint the plaintiffs seek, by the injunctive process, to restrain the corporate defendants from canceling or modifying their contract with plaintiffs and to restrain the individual defendants from continuing to coerce, or induce the corporate defendants to breach or abrogate their contract.

There is no dispute about the facts, as all of the parties, both in arguments and in their briefs, in effect, say that the averments of the complaint are true and that the corporate defendants are not only seeking to breach or abrogate their contract with the plaintiffs but that they are being forced to do so by the menacing threats of their co-defendants.

As indicated, all of the defendants endeavor to invoke the provisions of the Railway Labor Act as outlining a proper procedure in cases of this character, and, that, being an administrative remedy, the plaintiffs should and are required to resort to the tribunals created by the Act, and until that has been done this court has no jurisdiction.

This position is untenable. The Railway Labor Act did not limit the jurisdiction of the federal court, but, on the contrary, increased that jurisdiction. Paragraph (p) of Section 153, Title 45 U.S. C.A. provides:

"If a carrier does not comply with an order of a division of the Adjustment Board within the time limit in such order, the petitioner, or any person for whose benefit such order was made, may file in the District Court of the United States for the district in which he resides or in which is located the principal operating office of the carrier, or through which the carrier operates, a petition setting forth briefly the causes for which he claims relief * * * Such suit in the District Court of the United States shall proceed in all respects as other civil suits, except that on the trial of such suit the findings and order of the division of the Adjustment Board shall be prima facie evidence of the facts therein stated, etc."

Other exceptions need not be mentioned.

It was clearly pointed out in the case of Nord v. Griffin, 86 F.2d 481, 483, by the Seventh Circuit, that:

"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."

The court further said, 86 F.2d loc. cit. 483:

"Nor do we believe that the Railroad Labor Act in any way limited the jurisdiction of the District Court as previously conferred by 28 U.S.C.A., § 41(1)."

This case was followed and approved by three judges sitting on a constitutional question in the Eastern Division of the Northern District of Illinois, on October 17, 1946, in the case of Obie Faust Hunter et al. v. Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Company et al. (No. 44 C 971). Pertinently the judges said with respect to the Railway Labor Act:

"But it did not take away the right of an employee to appeal to the courts for relief. If a railroad, in violation of the rights of an employee, discharges him or attempts to deprive him of seniority rights the civil courts afford him a remedy. Nord v. Griffin, 7 Cir., 86 F.2d 481, certiorari denied 300 U.S. 673, 57 S.Ct. 612, 81 L.Ed. 879, Moore v. Illinois Central R. R. Co., 312 U.S. 630, 61 S.Ct. 754, 85 L.Ed. 1089."

This viewpoint was upheld and emphatically maintained in Steele v. Louisville & N. R. Co., 323 U.S. 192, 65 S.Ct. 226, 89 L.Ed. 173, and Tunstall v. Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen & Enginemen et al., 323 U.S. 210, 65 S.Ct. 235, 89 L.Ed. 187.

Obviously, the Railway Labor Act does not undertake to adjudicate or adjust differences or controversies such as are present in this case. The boards created by the Railway Labor Act are administrative boards with quasi judicial power.

In the instant case the plaintiffs are standing on a contract admittedly entered into between them and the corporate defendants and admittedly conferring upon them certain highly remunerative privileges, and, with equal frankness, it is admitted that the Railroad Companies are seeking to breach or abrogate that contract and that they are doing so under the compulsion, duress and coercion of the individual defendants. It nowhere appears from an examination of the Railway Labor Act that the administrative boards therein created are clothed with authority to direct either the breaching or abrogation of contracts or to exercise a power to deprive one group of...