Serio v. Liss

• Decision Date: 17 November 1961
• Docket Number: No. 13571.,13571.
• Citation: Serio v. Liss, 300 F.2d 386 (3rd Cir. 1961)
• Parties: Harry SERIO, Appellant, v. Milton J. LISS, President of Local No. 478 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America; and Local No. 478 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America; and Arthur J. Goldberg, Secretary of Labor of the United States.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit

300 F.2d 386 (1961)

Harry SERIO, Appellant, v. Milton J. LISS, President of Local No. 478 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America; and Local No. 478 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America; and Arthur J. Goldberg, Secretary of Labor of the United States.

No. 13571.

United States Court of Appeals Third Circuit.

Argued June 9, 1961.

Decided November 17, 1961.

Thomas L. Parsonnet, Newark, N. J. (Parsonnet, Weitzman & Oransky, Newark, N. J., on the brief), for appellant.

Marvin S. Shapiro, Washington, D. C. (William H. Orrick, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., Chester A. Weidenburner, U. S. Atty., Newark, N. J., Morton Hollander, Atty., Dept. of Justice, Washington, D. C., Charles Donahue, Sol., James R. Beaird, Asst. Sol., Louis Weiner, Deputy Asst. Sol., Dept. of Labor, Washington, D. C., on the brief), for appellee.

Before BIGGS, Chief Judge, and HASTIE and FORMAN, Circuit Judges.

BIGGS, Chief Judge.

Serio, an elected "Business Agent" of Local No. 478, sued Liss, its President, to restrain the Local from discharging him as business agent pursuant to Section 504 of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 (The Landrum-Griffin Act), 29 U.S.C.A. § 504. Though he, Serio, had been convicted of the crime of atrocious assault and battery and had served a term of imprisonment, he asserts that the five-year cleansing period, prescribed by Section 504, has expired and he is therefore entitled to retain his office. Serio seeks a declaratory judgment to such effect.

The Secretary of Labor was permitted to intervene as a party defendant by the court below. While no motion for summary judgment was filed, the case was treated by the court below as if cross motions for summary judgment had been made by the parties. The court below decided that Serio was holding office illegally. See 189 F.Supp. 358 (1960).¹

The court below had jurisdiction of the suit at bar by virtue of Section 504(a) of the Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 504(a),² and Section 1337, Title 28 U.S.C.³ In our opinion the case at bar is one in which the cause of action "arises under" a law of the United States, inasmuch as Serio's claim for declaratory relief is based directly upon Section 504(a) of the Act. In so stating we have not over-looked the carefully reasoned opinions of Judge Clary in Strauss v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters, et al., 179 F. Supp. 297 (D.C.E.D.Pa.1959) and of Chief Judge Thomsen in Jackson v. Martin Co., 180 F.Supp. 475 (D.C.Md.1960), based in large part on Gully v. First National Bank, 299 U.S. 109, 112, 57 S.Ct. 96, 97, 81 L.Ed. 70 (1936). In Gully, Mr. Justice Cardozo stated: "How and when a case arises `under the Constitution or laws of the United States' has been much considered in the books. Some tests are well established. To bring a case within the statute, a right or immunity created by the Constitution or laws of the United States must be an element, and an essential one, of the plaintiff's cause of action." The court below, in declining to follow the reasoning of the Strauss and Jackson cases, draws support for the finding of jurisdiction from Starin v. New York, 115 U.S. 248, 257, 6 S.Ct. 28, 31, 29 L.Ed. 388 (1885). The Supreme Court said by Mr. Chief Justice Waite: "The character of a case is determined by the questions involved. * * * If from the questions it appears that some title, right, privilege, or immunity, on which the recovery depends, will be defeated by one construction of * * * a law of the United States, or sustained by the opposite construction, the case will be one arising under the * * * laws of the United States, within the meaning of that term as used in the act * * *; otherwise not." The Chief Justice cited Osborn v. Bank of the United States, 9 Wheat. 738, 6 L.Ed. 204 (1824), Cohens v. Virginia, 6 Wheat. 264, 5 L.Ed. 257 (1821), and numerous other authorities.

We think that the sound but contrasting principles of Gully and Starin are sometimes construed, respectively, too narrowly or too broadly, to reflect accurately the reach of federal question jurisdiction under Sections 1331 and 1337, Title 28 U.S.C. The Starin rule is not completely compatible with those decisions denying jurisdiction in which the plaintiff's claim is derived from or is dependent upon state law, even though the construction and constitutionality of a federal statute are the decisive issues in the case. See, e. g., Louisville & Nashville R. R. v. Mottley, 211 U.S. 149, 29 S.Ct. 42, 53 L.Ed. 126 (1908). Cf. Skelly Oil Co. v. Phillips Petroleum Co., 339 U.S. 667, 70 S.Ct. 876, 94 L.Ed. 1194 (1950). On the other hand, the Supreme Court has recognized exceptions to the Gully standard also. Thus, jurisdiction was not questioned in Jewell Ridge Coal Co. v. United Mine Workers, 325 U.S. 161, 65 S.Ct. 1063, 89 L.Ed. 1534 (1945), or Tennessee Coal etc. Co. v. Muscoda Local, 321 U.S. 590, 64 S.Ct. 698, 88 L.Ed. 949 (1944), where the plaintiff employers sought a declaratory judgment negating the federal right asserted by the defendant employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 201 et seq.⁴ And, when the plaintiff voiced constitutional objections and attempted to enjoin the defendant from carrying out a federal duty prescribed by the Agricultural Adjustment Act, 7 U.S.C.A. §§ 1311-1314, the Court in Mulford v. Smith, 307 U.S. 38, 59 S.Ct. 648, 83 L.Ed. 1092 (1939), expressly bottomed jurisdiction on Section 1337. We think that the facts of the instant case are jurisdictionally indistinguishable from those in Mulford and that the court below had jurisdiction under Section 1337.

We realize of course that there are claims directly founded on federal law, in which the national interest is not large,⁵ and that to bring all of these into the federal trial courts, would overburden these tribunals to an extent which might cripple their efficiency. But we cannot doubt that Congress considered the provisions of Section 504(a) of the Act as important in effecting a national purpose. By the declarations of findings, purposes, and policy of Section 2 of the Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 401, Congress made it clear that it was its intention that labor union officials should adhere to the "highest standards of responsibility and ethical conduct in administering the affairs of their organizations", and that there had been failures to meet those high standards of responsibility and of ethical conduct. We believe that Congress intended the provisions of Section 504(a) to have an antiseptic and purifying effect on the conduct of union affairs by union officials and officers and made clear that an individual with a criminal record should not be employed in a position of union responsibility until he had reestablished his probity by a five year penitential period. Congress made this a national policy and in our opinion deemed that policy to be of such importance as to permit its application through adjudications by the national courts.

At first examination of the record this appeal seems to be moot. Serio's term as business agent will be at an end on December 31, 1962. The five-year interdiction period of Section 504(a) came to an end no later than December 31, 1960, whether one accepts the view of the Secretary that enlargement of custody by parole is not termination of imprisonment or Serio's view that it is. But Serio was removed from the payroll when the temporary restraint imposed upon the Local by the order of November 2, 1960 was dissolved by the court's order of December 13, 1960. Serio was returned to the payroll on January 2, 1961. He therefore is owed a few days pay if he was not subject to the statutory interdiction.⁶ This issue alone keeps the case from mootness. We do not have to determine whether Serio was or was not under the interdiction of the statute at the time of his election as business agent nor do we have to determine whether or not he was or is a member of the Local or of the International. Indeed we cannot do so on the present record. See note 1, supra. We do not have to determine his union membership because the provisions of Section 504(a) are operative as to any person, union member or not, who holds a union office, the words of the statute being that "No person who * * * has been convicted of * * * assault which inflicts grievous bodily injury * * * shall serve * * as a * * * business agent * * * for five years * * * after the end of" his imprisonment. But we do have to determine, as did the court below, whether the five-year interdiction period did expire on December 31, 1960; for if it expired at an earlier date, as Serio contends, he lost some pay amounting, with interest, to about $500. On the other hand Serio was deprived of nothing to which he was entitled if the Secretary's theory is correct that his enlargement by parole was not a termination of imprisonment.

The Secretary insists that this issue must be decided by federal law alone, whether the parolee is paroled by state law or by federal law. If the parolee had committed a federal crime, had been incarcerated in a federal jail and was paroled by the Federal Parole Board, the term "after the end of such imprisonment", employed in Section 504(a), must be tested by federal law alone since no state law is involved. It is clear that federal law includes parole as part of imprisonment. This is conceded by Serio. If, on the other hand, an individual was convicted of a serious state offense, an assault which inflicted grievous bodily injury, as here, was imprisoned in a state institution and was paroled by virtue of state law, must the phrase "after the end of such imprisonment" be tested solely, as Serio insists, by the law of the state in which the convicted person was sentenced and later paroled?

We are of the opinion that the two alternative positions stated by the Secretary and by Serio are too sharp in their outlines and that Congress...