UNITED MINE WKRS. OF AMERICA v. Meadow Creek Coal Co.

• Decision Date: 21 January 1959
• Docket Number: No. 13470.,13470.
• Citation: 263 F.2d 52
• Parties: UNITED MINE WORKERS OF AMERICA, Appellant, v. MEADOW CREEK COAL COMPANY, Inc., Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

263 F.2d 52 (1959)

UNITED MINE WORKERS OF AMERICA, Appellant, v. MEADOW CREEK COAL COMPANY, Inc., Appellee.

No. 13470.

United States Court of Appeals Sixth Circuit.

January 21, 1959.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

E. H. Rayson and R. R. Kramer, of Kramer, Dye, McNabb & Greenwood, Knoxville, Tenn. (William J. Turnblazer, Middlesboro, Ky., Willard P. Owens, Washington, D. C., on the brief), for appellant.

Lewis S. Pope, Nashville, Tenn., for appellee.

Before MARTIN and MILLER, Circuit Judges, and JONES, District Judge.

MARTIN, Circuit Judge.

United Mine Workers of America (an unincorporated labor union or association) has appealed from a judgment against it in favor of Meadow Creek Coal Company, Inc. (a Tennessee corporation), entered by the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee after a lengthy trial without the intervention of a jury. The award consisted of $300,000 compensatory damages and $100,000 punitive damages.

The district court rested its jurisdiction upon the pleadings and upon the entire evidence, for the reason that the coal company's claim of a secondary boycott as proscribed under section 187 of Title 29 U.S.C.A. Labor Management Relations Act, presents a federal question. The judgment of the court was based upon forty-one separate findings of fact — all supported by substantial evidence and not clearly erroneous — and upon its conclusions of law. We shall undertake first to recite in narrative form the fact findings of the district court and then discuss its conclusions of law in the light of the main points made by the appellant.

The United Mine Workers of America, composed of a membership of over 300,000 with headquarters in Washington, D. C., has district and local offices throughout the United States and in Canada. It functions under a written constitution, providing for a president, a vice-president, and a secretary-treasurer. Its affairs are under the control of these officers and an international board whose members are elected from various districts in the United States. The international union collects monthly dues from its members at the rate of $4.25 each, remitted to the Washington office. Of this amount, $2.25 per member, per month, is retained at the international headquarters in Washington and $2.00 of each member's dues each month is returned to the district from which the collection is made, to be divided between the districts and the local unions.

The international union has virtually all the rights and powers vested in corporations, including among others the right to sue and be sued in its own name, the right to adopt by-laws, to appoint representatives, agents and other employees, and the right to own and maintain property. The individual members are not liable individually for the debts and obligations of the organization, which, on January 1, 1957, possessed nearly $21,000,000 in cash and bonds.

The appellee coal company, organized in 1935, was actively engaged in mining and marketing coal in Putnam County, Tennessee. In 1944, at the instance of representatives of appellant, a consent election under supervision of the National Labor Relations Board was held, with the result that only one-third of the employees of the appellee company cast votes in favor of appellant as bargaining agent.

In the latter part of 1946, appellant sent into Putnam County, Tennessee, four organizers to campaign for the organization of all mines in that vicinity which did not have bargaining agreements with the international union. They were successful in organizing workers in several mines and passed much time in and around Monterey, Tennessee, which was located only two miles from the mine of the appellee company. They stayed there for the purpose of organizing Meadow Creek's employees, but failed to interest a majority of them.

As found by the district court, appellant determined in the latter part of December, 1947, to close down the appellee's mine by force; and, through its representatives in the area and with the aid of many of its members in that region of Tennessee and Kentucky, conspired to go in force upon the property of the appellee. In furtherance of this conspiracy, some 200 members of the United Mine Workers of America met on the morning of January 12, 1948, at Sparta, Tennessee, which is located about 22 miles from the mine of appellee. They formed a motorcade to the Meadow Creek Mine and arrived there in a body around 2:30 in the afternoon. The night and day shifts were changing. The mob blockaded appellee's private road and stationed guards between the intersection of that road with the public highway and the mine. No customers were allowed to enter the property of appellee. The mob, some of whom were armed, intercepted employees of the appellee company and, by persuasion and threats of bodily harm to them and their families if they did not do so, urged them to join the United Mine Workers of America.

Prior to this assembly there had been no labor trouble at appellee's mine. Including both night and day shifts, appellee had 169 employees on January 12, 1948 — the date the mob gathered at the mine. A truck was backed up in front of the commissary and the mob crowded around it. From the bed of the truck, J. W. Ridings, a member of appellant's international board and the leader of the invasion; Hugh Brown, one of appellant's representatives; and Howard Madewell, President of the United Mine Workers Union at Wilder, Tennessee, addressed the assembly, including the mine workers. These speakers boldly asserted that appellee's mine would not be run another day unless the company signed a contract with the union.

When they arrived at the mine, Madewell (President of Local at Wilder) and Stultz (representative of appellant's District 19,) who were in the first of approximately seventy-five cars constituting the motorcade, told Powell (a supervisory employee of appellee) that they had come to shut down the mine and that it would stay closed until the company signed a contract with the union. The district court found that such was the obvious purpose of appellant in organizing and directing the march on the mine of appellee.

In consequence of the mob's action, the night-shift workers would not enter the mine that night and, on the following day, only eight or ten men reported for work. This was too small a force for operation of the mine; and, although the mine was kept in operable condition by the use of supervisory employees, the company was unable to recruit sufficient workers for the resumption of mining.

Only three days before the unlawful march on the mine, Ridings and Brown had called upon appellee's president (W. T. Ray) at his home. They told him that the United Mine Workers of America represented a majority of his employees and that they wanted to talk with him about a collective bargaining agreement. But they did not in fact represent the majority of the employees at that time and they presented no proposed contract. Nevertheless, President Ray told them that if appellee's employees wanted the United Mine Workers of America to represent them, he would be glad to discuss the matter with union representatives at any time. This was the only meeting, either requested or held, between the representatives of the union and the management of the company before the march on the mine on January 12, 1948. Appellee was given no advance notice of this tour de force.

On the day following (January 13, 1948), the leader, Ridings (member of the international board of appellant) left Tennessee and did not return for two weeks. President Ray — even though his life had been threatened — stayed at the mine until January 31 when he went to Florida, as was his custom, and remained there for about six weeks. The union was furnished his Florida address, but none of the representatives communicated with him. Upon his return to Monterey on March 12, 1948, no effort was made to arrange a meeting with him, although Ridings knew that he was in Monterey. President Ray went back to Florida and remained there for two weeks before coming back to Tennessee.

On account of the apparent animosity of the appellant toward appellee's president, the appellee company decided to organize a new company to operate the mine and deliver the coal to appellee, in railroad cars or trucks, at the mouth of the mine. To consummate this, a corporation known as the "Tennessee Coal Company" was organized under the laws of Tennessee. This new company entered into a contract with Meadow Creek Coal Company under the terms of which the new corporation would use the equipment of appellee to mine the coal and deliver it to appellee, as planned. Appellee contracted to pay the Tennessee Coal Company the actual cost of mining the coal, plus ten cents per ton.

It was agreed that the coal, both in the ground and at all times, belonged to appellee; and that the Tennessee Coal Company had only the right to mine and produce it. Appellee sold the coal and received all proceeds from sales. This plan of operation was adopted in an effort to reduce the damage suffered by appellee as the result of its mine being closed. Appellee rendered aid to the Tennessee Coal Company in its mining and production operation and paid salaries to some of its administrative officers and employees.

At the time Meadow Creek's mine was first opened for production, appellee had no railroad to the mine and was limited to truck sales and deliveries in the movement of its coal. This situation continued until a railroad was built to the mine some two years prior to the events of January 12, 1948. Of necessity, appellee had built up a very unusual truck trade for the movement and distribution of its product, a large portion of which was sold and transported by truck even after the railroad to the mine had been completed. Indeed, on January 12, 1948, appellee had more than 500 truck customers scattered over a wide area of Tennessee...