United Farm Workers Organizing Committee, AFL-CIO v. Superior Court of Kern County

• Decision Date: 28 September 1967
• Docket Number: AFL-CIO
• Citation: 254 Cal.App.2d 768,62 Cal.Rptr. 567
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: , 66 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2514, 56 Lab.Cas. P 51,768 UNITED FARM WORKERS ORGANIZING COMMITTEE,et al., Petitioners, v. SUPERIOR COURT OF KERN COUNTY, Respondent; GIUMARRA BROS. FRUIT CO. et al., Real Parties in Interest. Civ. 858.

Page 567

62 Cal.Rptr. 567

254 Cal.App.2d 768, 66 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2514,

56 Lab.Cas. P 51,768

UNITED FARM WORKERS ORGANIZING COMMITTEE, AFL-CIO et al., Petitioners, v. SUPERIOR COURT OF KERN COUNTY, Respondent GIUMARRA BROS. FRUIT CO. et al., Real Parties in Interest.

Civ. 858.

Court of Appeal, Fifth District, California.

Sept. 28, 1967.

Jerome Cohen, Delano, for petitioners.

Doty, Quinlan & Kershaw, and William A. Quinlan, Fresno, Mack, Bianco & Means, Bakersfield, for respondent and real parties in interest.

CONLEY, Associate Justice.

In the midst of a major strike of farm workers formerly employed by the real parties in interest on their 8,000 acres of vineyard in Kern County and southern Tulare County, the trial judge herein issued a preliminary injunction in Giumarra Bros. Fruit Co. et al. v. United Farm Workers Organizing Committee et al., Kern County No. 100011, which contained, in addition to a comprehensive restraint of allegedly improper means of picketing, an additional provision which was transparently invalid forbidding the use under any circumstances of any mechanical device for the purpose of amplifying the human voice and directing it toward plaintiffs' present employees while they were engaged in their work on plaintiffs' land. That the petitioners herein had no 'plain, speedy and adequate remedy at law' as alleged, seems apparent in this modern age when timely action is requisite for the protection of constitutional rights; the petitioners have in fact filed an appeal from the preliminary injunction as issued, but the perfection of a record, the consideration of legal claims, and the necessary time consumed in any formal appeal make it apparent that before correction of this basic error could be secured through the appellate device the strike might well be either won or lost.

The acreage of the real parties in interest is devoted to the raising of table grapes; the picking season has been partly finished and it will be terminated long before a final appellate judgment could be secured from the upper courts; the exercise of viable constitutional rights should not be made to depend upon a slowly evolving test of their correctness; the Constitution is a live document which persists in full strength at all times, and when there is a clear breach of a constitutional right, timely attention to its enforcement is essential.

This strike, as shown by the record, is no exception to the country's general experience that there is frequently trouble generated on both sides as between the participants. As a consequence, a preliminary injunction was issued which is many faceted, and is comprehensive and almost complete in keeping the contest between vineyard owners and their former employees decently peaceful and within the law. In the preliminary injunction issued in this case, the provisions from paragraph (a) to subparagraph (1) in substance were included in the original temporary restraining order issued by the court on the 7th day of August, 1967. The present preliminary injunction of August 18, 1967, however, contains the additional provision numbered (m), restraining the strikers from:

'Using any mechanical device for the purpose of amplifying one's voice and directing the same toward plaintiffs' employees while plaintiffs' employees are engaged in their work for plaintiffs.'

The injunction reads in relevant part as follows:

'NOW, THEREFORE, upon filing a surety bond in the amount of $1,000.00, the defendants, and each of them, their agents, employees, representatives, officers, members, organizers and pickets, and all persons in active concert and participation with them, be and they are hereby enjoined and restrained from

'(a) Picketing, standing, sitting, loitering, gathering, assembling, massing, parading, walking, stopping, or stationing, placing or maintaining any pickets or other persons at, near, about or within plaintiffs' facilities and properties located at said places described in Schedule 'A' annexed hereto and made a part hereof, or in the street or highway, public or private, the use of which is necessary for ingress to or egress from said properties or facilities; Provided however:

'(1) that where there is regular ingress and egress to or from plaintiffs' properties, facilities or ranches customarily and regularly used by vehicular traffic, not more than three (3) pickets may be stationed at each side of any said regular ingress or egress;

'(2) that where there is not ingress or egress regularly or customarily used by vehicular traffic and picking crews are entering plaintiffs' properties from public streets, roads or highways, one (1) picket may be placed at intervals of not less than fifty (50) feet, each from the other;

'(3) that said pickets shall not be upon the private property of plaintiffs;

'(4) that said pickets shall not parade or march across any said ingress or egress or any public or private road in the vicinity thereof, the use of which is necessary for the ingress or egress to or from said properties, facilities or ranches, nor in any other manner physically interfere with or obstruct said ingress or egress or public roads in the vicinity thereof.

'(b) Placing or driving their vehicles in front of or behind vehicles desiring to enter plaintiffs' facilities, properties or ranches in such manner as to slow said vehicles down, cause them to stop or impede their progress.

'(c) Parking or placing their vehicles in such a manner as to obstruct the free flow of traffic into and out of plaintiffs' facilities and properties.

'(d) Standing in front of, lying down in front of any vehicles desiring to enter upon plaintiffs' properties, facilities or ranches.

'(e) Placing in front of the drivers of any vehicles any sign or obstruction for the purpose of obstructing the view of said driver, or which will in any manner obstruct the view of said driver.

'(f) Picketing, intimidating or coercing any of plaintiffs' employees at the places where they live, or from entering plaintiffs' employees' homes or vehicles, unless invited so to do by plaintiffs' employees.

'(g) Injuring persons or destroying or damaging property of plaintiffs, plaintiffs' employees, or of others, and from engaging in conduct calculated or likely to cause or causing injury to persons or damage to property.

'(h) Following employees or members of their families by automobile or otherwise in a coercive or threatening conduct or demeanor.

'(i) Intimidating, threatening, molesting, assaulting, pushing, elbowing, shouldering or coercing, or in any other manner intentionally physically contacting the persons or clothing of any of plaintiffs' agents, representatives, visitors, invitees, employees of customers, suppliers, common carriers or others doing or attempting to do business with plaintiffs, or any vehicle in which any of said persons herein described are riding.

'(j) Causing or inducing, or attempting to cause or induce, by word or conduct, any fear of physical molestation, injury or damage to or on the part of plaintiffs' employees, agents, representatives, visitors, invitees, employees of customers, suppliers, common carriers or others, doing or attempting to do business with plaintiff or their respective employees.

'(k) Obstructing or attempting to obstruct plaintiffs' employees, agents, representatives, visitors, invitees, customers, suppliers, common carriers or others doing or attempting to do business with plaintiffs, or their respective employees, from entering or leaving any of plaintiffs' facilities.

'(1) Engaging in threatening, intimidating, or using loud or obscene language against any of plaintiffs' employees, agents, representatives, visitors, invitees, common carriers, suppliers, customers, or any employees of said persons, doing or attempting to do business with plaintiffs.

'(m) Using any mechanical device for the purpose of amplifying one's voice and directing the same toward plaintiffs' employees while plaintiffs' employees are engaged in their work for plaintiffs. 'IT IS ORDERED that nothing herein shall be construed to limit the right of the pickets herein allowed to be placed to exercise their privilege of free speech, providing same is lawfully done and in accordance herewith, and not in violation hereof.'

The petitioners state explicitly that in this proceeding they are not objecting to any part of the preliminary injunction except that portion contained in paragraph (m), and then only to the extent that it absolutely prohibits the use of any mechanical device for the purpose of amplifying the human voice and directing the same toward plaintiffs' employees. The injunction is not limited to a prohibition of 'loud and raucous noises' by mechanical amplification, but is complete in its prevention of the use of any mechanical device whatsoever. The petitioners emphasize that they only seek in a proper way and without the emission of any 'loud and raucous noise,' bullhorns for the purpose of making clear to the employees working in the vineyard their wish that they should become members of the union; this imparting of ideas would necessarily include a statement of the reasons for the strike and the viewpoint of the strikers with respect to their treatment by the vineyard owners, and what they seek to secure through this labor disagreement.

The case of Wollam v. City of Palm Springs, 59 Cal.2d 276, 284, 29 Cal.Rptr. 1, 6, 379 P.2d 481, 486, seems to us to hold conclusively that the absolute prohibition of amplified speech contained in paragraph (m) of the preliminary injunction is a violation of the rights granted by the first amendment to the United States Constitution, and to hold that freedom of speech as so guaranteed extends to the means of communication as well as to its content and more particularly, that the right to communicate includes mechanical amplification. In the opinion the court states:

'In certain instances the sound truck may be the only practical means for...