Schatte v. International Alliance, etc.
| Citation | 182 F.2d 158 |
| Decision Date | 01 May 1950 |
| Docket Number | No. 12321.,12321. |
| Parties | SCHATTE et al. v. INTERNATIONAL ALLIANCE OF THEATRICAL STAGE EMPLOYEES AND MOVING PICTURE MACHINE OPERATORS OF UNITED STATES AND CANADA et al. |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (9th Circuit) |
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Zach Lamar Cobb, Los Angeles, Cal., for appellant.
O'Melveny & Myers, Homer I. Mitchell and W. B. Carman, Los Angeles, Cal., for appellees Ass'n of Motion Pict. Prod. et al.
Bodkin, Breslin & Luddy, Michael G. Luddy, Los Angeles, Cal., for appellees Int. Alliance et al.
James P. Blaisdell, Livingston Jenks, Marshall M. Goodsill, Jr., Honolulu, T. H., for Matson Navigation Co., amici curiæ.
Before ORR and POPE, Circuit Judges, and WEINBERGER, District Judge.
This appeal is from the dismissal of a complaint for failure to state a claim for relief within the jurisdiction of the district court. No diversity of citizenship is alleged.
Appellants are members of Local 946 of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, which is affiliated with the A. F. of L. The employer appellees are major motion picture studios, which manufacture motion pictures for interstate commerce, and the Association of Motion Picture Producers, Inc., which is composed of said studios. The labor appellees are the International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees, a labor union affiliated with the A. F. of L., hereinafter referred to as the I.A.T.S.E. and certain of its officers. Many members of the I.A. T.S.E. work in the motion picture studies. Appellants, while employed as carpenters, became involved in a jurisdictional dispute with I.A.T.S.E., refused to perform certain work and were, in effect, discharged. They filed a complaint in the district court on behalf of themselves and the other members of Local 946, persons similarly situated, asking for damages arising from breach of contracts and alleged conspiracies, and other wrongful acts.
The complaint is divided into four purported causes of action. The first "cause of action" alleges a series of written agreements between the Brotherhood of Carpenters and the I.A.T.S.E., and among the carpenters, I.A.T.S.E., other unions and employer appellees. The complaint alleges that said agreements provided that members of the Brotherhood of Carpenters should receive fixed hourly wages, a six-hour day and a closed shop; that only members of the Brotherhood should be permitted to do the carpentry work of the studios, and that the carpenters, and not the I.A.T.S.E., should do the work of constructing sets on stages. It is then alleged that the employer appellees and the labor appellees entered into a conspiracy to replace the carpenters working in the studios with members of the I.A.T.S.E. in violation of the written agreements. Pursuant to conspiracy, it is alleged, the employer appellees systematically requested all the carpenters in their employ to do work on sets which had been constructed by members or permittees of the I.A.T.S.E. and, when the carpenters refused, ordered them to cease work and leave the premises unless and until they became willing to work under conditions less favorable than those provided in the written agreements. The purpose and effect of the conspiracy, according to the complaint, was to deprive appellants and carpenters in whose behalf they sue, of their contractual rights to work for the employer appellees under agreed conditions, including a six-hour day and a closed shop, and this deprivation is alleged to have continued to the time of filing the complaint.
The "first cause of action" also includes the allegation that the appellees falsely represented to the California State Unemployment Commission that the carpenters had left their work in a trade dispute, thus causing the Commission to deprive the carpenters, including appellants, of unemployment benefits to which they were entitled under federal and state laws.
The "second cause of action" alleges that the deprivation of appellants' contractual rights to work was brought about and has been continued in effect by threats made by the I.A.T.S.E. to the employer appellees and other employers. It is further stated that subsequent to the enactment of the Labor-Management Relations Act of 1947, known as the Taft-Hartley Act, 29 U.S.C. A. § 141 et seq., the carpenters sought to bargain with the employer appellees but were rebuffed, whereupon they filed an unfair labor practice complaint against the employer appellees with the National Labor Relations Board; that the complaint was investigated by a field examiner who was, as the Labor Board officers well knew, a member of the I.A.T.S.E.; and that the complaint was dismissed on the recommendation of the field examiner.
The "third cause of action" alleges that the rights under the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 151 et seq., to bargain collectively and to have a fair hearing on charges of unfair labor practices, and the right to unemployment benefits, arising under the Social Security Act, 42 U.S.C.A. § 503, and the California Unemployment Insurance Act, Gen.Laws, Act 8780d, are at the same time civil rights of citizens of the United States of which appellants were deprived by the acts of appellees alleged in the preceding "causes of action." It is alleged that appellees thereby became liable for damages to appellants and the carpenters under the Civil Rights Acts, 8 U.S.C.A. §§ 43, 47.
The "fourth cause of action" alleges that the employer appellees compelled smaller motion picture producers to replace the carpenters with the less efficient members of the I.A.T.S.E., with the intention and effect of increasing the smaller studios' cost of production beyond their financial capacity and eventually eliminating all competition against the financially stronger employer appellees. In addition to a general allegation of damage to appellants' business and property within the meaning of the Sherman and Clayton Acts, 15 U.S. C.A. § 15, it is alleged that appellants will suffer in the future by being required to pay increased prices of admission to motion picture theatres.
In Schatte v. I.A.T.S.E., No. 11,653, reported in 165 F.2d 216, this court adopted the opinion of the District Court, reported in 70 F.Supp. 1008, dismissing a complaint filed by many of the same persons who are appellants here against the same defendants who are appellees here, alleging the same written agreements and some of the same wrongful acts and deprivation of rights as are alleged here. We consider the decision in case No. 11,653 decisive as to the same issues presented in the instant case. The action in case No. 11,653 was for a declaratory judgment of the plaintiffs' rights under the alleged written contracts, which were alleged to have been negotiated pursuant to the right to bargain collectively as provided in the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 157. Declaratory relief was also requested as to plaintiffs' rights to work despite an alleged conspiracy, allegedly implemented by strike threats of the I.A.T.S.E., to deprive plaintiffs of their contract rights to do carpentry work in the studios.
The former case held that no cause of action was stated under the National Labor Relations Act, the Civil Rights statutes, 8 U.S.C.A. §§ 43 and 47(3), or the Fifth or Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, and that, therefore, no jurisdiction existed in the United States courts to grant the relief prayed for in the complaint. However, the complaint in the former case did not contain allegations found here with respect to misrepresentations to the California Unemployment Insurance Commission, the refusal of the employer appellees to bargain collectively, the bias of the N.L.R.B. field examiner who investigated the charges against employer appellees, or the so-called conspiracy in restraint of trade. Furthermore, §§ 301 and 303 of the Taft-Hartley Act, 29 U.S.C.A. §§ 185, 187, invoked by appellants as a basis of jurisdiction here, had not yet been enacted at the time the complaint was filed in the earlier case. The complaint in the instant case presents for consideration the question of the sufficiency of the additional allegations contained therein to state a cause of action under any federal law and the sufficiency of the allegations as to breach of contract and as to conspiracy among appellees, implemented by threats of the I.A.T.S.E., to exclude appellants from employment with employer appellees under the Taft-Hartley Act only.
Section 301 of the Taft-Hartley Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 185, provides: "(a) Suits for violation of contracts between an employer and a labor organization representing employees in an industry affecting commerce as defined in this Act, or between any such labor organizations, may be brought in any district court of the United States having jurisdiction of the parties, without respect to the amount in controversy or without regard to the citizenship of the parties."
We find it unnecessary to determine whether or not the complaint states a cause of action under § 301 for the reason that said section was enacted subsequent to the alleged breach of contract in the instant case and the section is therefore inapplicable. Section 301 was not enacted merely to provide a new forum for the enforcement of contracts theretofore enforceable solely in the state courts. Had such been its sole purpose the constitutionality of the section as to actions in which diversity of citizenship was lacking might well be questioned. But the wording of the section and its place in the Taft-Hartley Act demonstrates that the section was designed to protect interstate and foreign commerce by creating a new substantive liability, actionable in the federal courts, for the breach of a collective bargaining contract in an industry affecting interstate or foreign commerce. Wilson & Co. v. United Packinghouse...
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