Smith v. Pittsburgh Gage & Supply Co.

• Decision Date: 09 October 1963
• Docket Number: No. 449,449
• Citation: 194 A.2d 181,412 Pa. 171
• Parties: Karl R. SMITH, James Reed, Joseph Wachtre, and Ed Owens, Appellants, v. PITTSBURGH GAGE AND SUPPLY COMPANY, a Pennsylvania corporation, and Steam Fitters Local Unionof the United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipe Fitting Industry of the United States and Canada, an unincorporated association.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

Page 181

194 A.2d 181

412 Pa. 171

Karl R. SMITH, James Reed, Joseph Wachtre, and Ed Owens, Appellants, v. PITTSBURGH GAGE AND SUPPLY COMPANY, a Pennsylvania corporation, and Steam Fitters Local Union No. 449 of the United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipe Fitting Industry of the United States and Canada, an unincorporated association.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

Oct. 9, 1963.

Donald E. Rohall, Pittsburgh, for appellants.

John G. Wayman, Leonard L. Scheinholtz, Reed, Smith, Shaw & McClay, John L. Bailey, Clyde P. Bailey, Weller, Wicks & Wallace, Pittsburgh, for appellees.

Before BELL, C. J., and MUSMANNO, JONES, COHEN, EAGEN, O'BRIEN and ROBERTS, JJ.

JONES, Justice.

On this appeal the issue is narrow; whether a state court has jurisdiction to entertain this action in trespass wherein discharged Employees, alleging that they were discharged from their employment by reason of a conspiracy between their Union and Employer, seek of the Union and the Employer reinstatement to employment and pecuniary damages.

Karl Smith, James Reed, Joseph Wachtre and Ed Owens, [Employees], instituted a trespass action, in the nature of a trespass on the case for conspiracy, in the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County against Pittsburgh Gage and Supply Company, [Employer], and Steam Fitters Local Union No. 449 of the United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipe Fitting Industry of the United States and Canada, [Union]. The Employees' complaint alleged that: (1) they had been Employees of the Employer and members of the Union, the collective bargaining agent; (2) in February, 1960, the Employer and the Union demanded that they withdraw from the Union; (3) upon their refusal to withdraw from the Union, both the Employer and the Union threatened them with reprisals; (4) as a result of a conspiracy between the Employer and the Union, they were discharged from employment; (5) the assigned ground for their discharge was the lack of available work, although at or about the same time the Employer hired other persons to do the identical work the Employees had previously performed; (6) that, by reason of the wrongful discharge pecuniary damages were suffered. Three-fold relief was sought: (a) reinstatement to their jobs, (b) the actual damages suffered and (c) punitive damages.

By way of preliminary objections, the Employer challenged the jurisdiction of the state court to entertain this action upon the ground that, assuming the verity of the facts set forth in the complaint such facts arguably constituted unfair labor practices under the provisions of the National Labor Relations Act, ¹ [Act], and that the exclusive jurisdiction of the cause of action was vested in the National Labor Relations Board [Board]. ² In preliminary objections, the Union requested a more specific complaint. The court sustained the Employer's preliminary objections and dismissed the complaint as to both the Union and Employer. From that order this appeal was taken.

In support of their position, the Employees contend: (1) that, since this action is based upon a tortious interference with a contractual relationship, the state court, not the Board, has jurisdiction; (2) that, since the existence of the conspiracy was not discovered until after six months had elapsed, by which time the Employees' right to go to the Board had expired, ³ the Employees will be without a remedy if the state court has no jurisdiction. In support of its position, the Employer contends: (1) that the gravamen of the charges embodied in the complaint arguably, as least, constitutes an activity subject to the protections of Section 7 or to the prohibitions of Section 8 of the Act and, therefore, only the Board and not a state court has jurisdiction; (2) the failure of the Employees to comply with the statute of limitations in the Act does not vest jurisdiction in the state court.

The basic rule delineating jurisdiction in this area of the law was recently reiterated by the United States Supreme Court in Local 100, etc. v. Borden, 373 U.S. 690, 83 S.Ct. 1423, 1425, 10 L.Ed.2d 638: 'This Court held in San Diego Building Trades Council [Millmen's Union, Local 2020] v. Garmon, 359 U.S. 236, 79 S.Ct. 773, 3 L.Ed.2d 775, that in the absence of an overriding state interest such as that involved in the maintenance of domestic peace, state courts must defer to the exclusive competence of the National Labor Relations Board in cases in which the activity that is the subject matter of the litigation is arguably subject to the protections of § 7 or the prohibitions of § 8 of the National Labor Relations Act.' The rationale of that rule is clear: in its promulgation of rules governing the relations of labor and management as such affect interstate commerce, ⁴ 'Congress did not merely lay down a substantive rule of law to be enforced by any tribunal competent to apply law generally to the parties. It went on to confide primary interpretation and application of its rules to a specific and specially constituted tribunal [the National Labor Relations Board] * * *. Congress evidently considered that centralized administratioin of specially designed procedures was necessary to obtain uniform application of its substantive rules and to avoid those diversities and conflicts likely to result from a variety of local procedures and attitudes toward labor controversies. * * * A multiplicity of tribunals and a diversity of procedures are quite as apt to produce incompatible or conflicting adjudications as are different rules of substantive law.' (Emphasis supplied): Garner v. Teamsters, Chauffeurs and Helpers, etc., 346 U.S. 485, 490, 491, 74 S.Ct. 161, 165, 166, 98 L.Ed. 228. In San Diego Building Trades Council, Millmen's Union, Local 2020 v. Garmon, supra, Mr. Justice Frankfurter (79 S.Ct. 778) stated: 'In determining the extent to which state regulation must yield to subordinating federal authority, [the Court has] been concerned with delimiting areas of potential conflict; potential conflict of rules of law, of remedy, and of administration' and that '[w]hen the exercise of state power over a particular area of activity threatened interference with the clearly indicated policy of industrial relations, it has been judicially necessary to preclude the States from acting. [citing cases].'

The U. S. Supreme Court has established a yardstick for determining when 'due regard for the federal enactment requires that state jurisdiction must yield', i. e., '[w]hen an activity is arguably subject to § 7 or § 8 of the Act, the States as well as the federal courts must defer to the exclusive competence of the National Labor Relations Board.': (emphasis supplied). Garmon, supra, 79 S.Ct. 780. See also: Marine Engineers Beneficial Association v. Interlake Steamship Co., 370 U.S. 173, 82 S.Ct. 1237, 8 L.Ed.2d 418.

To the general rule defining jurisdiction, the U. S. Supreme Court has recognized exceptions in the case of certain activities, even though such activities are arguably, or even concededly, within the protections of § 7 or the prohibitions of § 8 of the Act. As examples, the Garmon rule has been held inapplicable or irrelevant (a) where the activity consists of 'conduct marked by violence and imminent threats to the public order' (United Construction Workers, etc. v. Laburnum Construction Corp., 347 U.S. 656, 74 S.Ct. 833, 98 L.Ed. 1025; International Union, United Automobile, Aircraft and Agr. Implement Workers of America (UAW-CIO) v. Russell, 356 U.S. 634, 78 S.Ct. 932, 2 L.Ed.2d 1030); (b) where actions are brought on collective bargaining contracts under §§ 301, 303 of the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, ⁵ even though arguably, or even concededly, unfair labor practices are involved therein (Charles Dowd Box Co. v. Courtney et al., 368 U.S. 502, 82 S.Ct. 519, 7 L.Ed.2d 483; Local 174, etc. v. Lucas Flour Co., 369 U.S. 95, 82 S.Ct. 571, 7 L.Ed.2d 593; Atkinson et al. v. Sinclair Refining Co., 370 U.S. 238, 82 S.Ct. 1318, 8 L.Ed.2d 462; Smith v. Evening News Association, 371 U.S. 195, 83 S.Ct. 267, 9 L.Ed.2d 246); (c) where 'the lawsuit [is] focused on purely internal union matters, i. e., on relations between the individual plaintiff and the union not having to do directly with matters of employment, and * * * the principal relief sought [is] restoration of union membership rights.' ⁶ (International Association of Machinists v. Gonzales, 356 U.S. 617, 78 S.Ct. 923, 2 L.Ed.2d 1018). ⁷

In the case at bar, it is evident that the tortious act of conspiracy does not fall within any of the excepted activities. For example, the instant situation does not fall within the Gonzales exception because the crux of the Employees' complaint is not 'injury to the union-member relationship, as it was in Gonzales, but rather injury to [the Employees'] employment relationship' by reason of the discharge from employment allegedly due to the Union-Employer conspiracy. See: Wax v. International Mailers Union, 400 Pa. 173, 181, 161 A.2d 603.

Therefore, unless the activity of which the Employees complain is beyond argument, outside the orbit of the activities protected by § 7 or prohibited under § 8, then under the Garmon rule the state court has no jurisdiction of the cause of action set forth in the Employees' complaint. Section 7 protects employees in the 'right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organization, to bargain collectively through representatives of their...