United Aircraft Corp. v. International Ass'n of Machinists

• Decision Date: 13 April 1971
• Citation: 161 Conn. 79,285 A.2d 330
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: , 77 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2436, 66 Lab.Cas. P 52,602 UNITED AIRCRAFT CORPORATION v. INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MACHINISTS et al. (two cases).

Page 330

285 A.2d 330

161 Conn. 79, 77 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2436,

66 Lab.Cas. P 52,602

UNITED AIRCRAFT CORPORATION v. INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MACHINISTS et al. (two cases).

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

April 13, 1971.

Certiorari Denied Jan. 10, 1972. See 92 S.Ct. 675.

Norman Zolot, Hamden, and, of the Distrial of Columbia bar, Mozart G. Ratner, Washington, D.C., for appellants (defendants) in each case.

John D. Fassett, New Haven, with whom was S. Robert Jelley, New Haven, for appellee (plaintiff) in each case.

Before ALCORN, C.J., and THIM, RYAN, SHAPIRO and LOISELL, ^* JJ.

ALCORN, Chief Justice.

We are confronted with two appeals by the defendants from judgments awarding damages to the plaintiff in two cases which were tried together. The appeals have been consolidated for presentation to this court. In each action the plaintiff sought the recovery of both compensatory and exemplary damages from the defendants jointly and severally based upon allegedly tortious acts committed in the course of an illegal strike. As the cases have been presented in the trial court and here, four different defendants representing three different union organizational levels are involved. One case relates to a strike which took place at the plaintiff's Pratt & Whitney Division factories in East Hartford and Manchester, Connecticut. The other case relates to a simultaneous strike at the plaintiff's Hamilton Standard Division factories in Windsor Locks and Broad Brook, Connecticut. The top level of union organization involved is the defendant International Association of Machinists, hereinafter referred to as International. The next in union jurisdictional authority under International is the defendant Aeronautical Industrial District Lodge No. 91, hereinafter referred to as District 91. International and District 91 are defendants in both cases. At the bottom of International's union organization are the defendant Industrial Aircraft Lodge 1746 of the International Association of Machinists, hereinafter called Lodge 1746, and Industrial Aircraft Lodge 743 of the International Association of Machinists, hereinafter called Lodge 743. Members of Lodge 1746 were employed at the plaintiff's East Hartford and Manchester factories and Lodge 1746 was a defendant, along with International and District 91, in the action involving the strike at those plaints. Members of Lodge 743 were employed at the plaintiff's Windsor Locks and Broad Brook factories and Lodge 743 was a defendant, along with International and District 91, in the action involving the strike at those plants.

The defendants in each case filed identical pleas in abatement attacking the court's jurisdiction; the plaintiff demurred, and the court sustained the demurrers. The defendants in each case failed identical demurrers to the relief sought and the demurrers were overruled. The issues raised by these pleadings require no individual discussion because they are encompassed within the principal issues on this appeal. Following other preliminary pleading the issues were closed, trial was had first on the issue of liability and, subsequently, on the issue of damages. Judgment was rendered on November 26, 1968, that the plaintiff recover, in the case involving the strike in East Hartford and Manchester, damages of $1,369,725.25 with interest from August 12, 1960, exemplary damages of $197,333.33 and costs of $739.90; and, in the case involving the strike at Windsor Locks and Broad Brook, damages of $88,662 with interest from August 12, 1960, exemplary damages of $98,666.67 and costs of $241.70.

The court's finding, embraced in 866 numbered paragraphs covering 247 printed pages of the record, is the subject of a massive attack by the defendants. It would prolong this opinion beyond all reason to discuss the errors assigned in the finding. Suffice it to say that they have been carefully examined and that no correction which would have a material bearing on the decisive issues is required.

The plaintiff has filed a cross appeal in which it too assigns error in the finding and also in the court's failure to find that the defendants authorized, participated in and ratified the acts complained of, and in its finding and award of damages. Here again the claims concerning the finding have been carefully examined and no correction which would have a material bearing on the decisive issues is found to be required. As in the case of the appeal, the claims of law and fact made in the cross appeal are disposed of in the ensuing discussion of the essential dispute between the parties.

The real issues raised by the appeal are: (1) whether the trial court had jurisdiction of the controversy, (2) whether the trial court erred in imposing liability on the defendants, and (3) whether the trial court erred in assessing damages. We will discuss those issues in that order.

I

Based on the doctrine of federal preemption, the defendants assign error in the court's refusal to dismiss both actions on jurisdictional grounds. There is no denying the fact that the jurisdiction of the state courts over labor disputes has been greatly restricted by the passage of the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, and the establishment of the Labor Management Relations Board. The complaints in these actions alleged in substance, however, that, while the plaintiff was negotiating collective bargaining agreements with Lodge 1746 and Lodge 743, all of the defendants joined in concerted and unlawful mass picketing, personal violence, invective and intimidation with the wilful and malicious purpose of coercing and preventing persons from entering the plaintiff's premises as a result of which the plaintiff suffered severe financial damage It is well established that state courts have jurisdiction over such tort actions. United Mine Workers v. Gibbs, 383 U.S. 715, 721, 729, 86 S.Ct. 1130, 16 L.Ed.2d 218; San Diego Building Trades Council v. Garmon, 359 U.S. 236, 247, 79 S.Ct. 773, 3 L.Ed.2d 775; International Union, United Automobile etc. Workers v. Russell, 356 U.S. 634, 635, 646, 78 S.Ct. 932, 2 L.Ed.2d 1030; United Construction Workers v. Laburnum Construction Corporation, 347 U.S. 656, 657, 74 S.Ct. 833, 98 L.Ed. 1025. The claim of the defendants that the court lacked jurisdiction in without merit.

The defendants also attacked the court's jurisdiction on the ground that 'federal law prohibits employers from using state court damage suits, predicated on strike misconduct, as 'weapons of economic coercion," relying on an observation made in Linn v. United Plant Guard Workers, 383 U.S. 53, 64, 86 S.Ct. 657, 15 L.Ed.2d 582. The assertion of the accepted right to bring a state court action for damages arising from tortious conduct, as in the present cases, does not come within the ambit of the proposition stated even if the case relied on supported it.

The defendants' claims that the actions are barred by waiver, estoppel and condonation are completely without merit and do not require discussion.

II

We turn, then, to the question of the correctness of the trial court's conclusion that liability could properly be imposed on the defendants for the tortious acts complained of. Since these acts occurred in the course of a labor dispute, § 31-114 of the General Statutes becomes pertinent. ¹ That statute, in substance, provides that liability cannot be imposed on organizations such as the defendants, participating or interested in a labor dispute, for the unlawful acts of its individual officers, members or agents except on proof of (1) actual participation in, (2) actual authorization of, or (3) ratification of those acts by the defendants.

The plaintiff invokes the doctrine of respondeat superior under the common law of agency. Its argument is, in the first place, that, assuming that § 31-114 applies to cases such as the present, the statute did not do away with the common-law rules of agency and, secondly, in effect, that common-law rules of agency apply in these cases because § 31-114 does not apply.

There is no legislative history available to aid us in determining the extent to which, if at all, the General Assembly intended § 31-114 to displace the rules of agency in the case of labor unions involved in labor disputes. In Benoit v. Amalgamated Local 299, 150 Conn. 266, 274, 188 A.2d 499, however, we said that the language of § 31-114 is so similar to the language of § 6 of the Norris-LaGuardia Act (47 Stat. 71, § 6, 29 U.S.C. § 106) ² that the construction placed upon the latter by the United States Supreme Court is particularly pertinent in our construction of § 31-114.

We are persuaded by the reasoning and conclusions in cases construing § 6 of the Norris-LaGuardia Act that the liability of these defendants is to be determined by the application of § 31-114 of our General Statutes and that the common-law rules of agency are pertinent to § 31-114 only as an aid to determining actual participation in, actual authorization of, or ratification of the acts complained of. In other words, we believe that while a labor union which could properly be held to be liable under § 31-114 would probably also be liable under agency principles, nevertheless liability under common-law agency rules would not necessarily create liability under § 31-114.

The legislative history of § 6 of the Norris-LaGuardia Act, which we consider as somewhat of a twin to our own § 31-114, was reviewed in United Brotherhood of Carpenters v. United States, 330 U.S. 395, 67 S.Ct. 775, 91 L.Ed. 973. In that case the court said (p. 403, 67 S.Ct. p. 780): 'We need not determine whether § 6 (of the Norris-LaGuardia Act) should be called a rule of evidence or one that changes the substantive law of agency. We hold that its purpose and effect was to relieve organizations, whether of labor or capital, and members of those organizations from liability for damages or imputation of guilt for lawless acts done in labor disputes by some...