United States v. City of St. Louis

• Decision Date: 25 April 1978
• Docket Number: No. 77-1012C(1).,77-1012C(1).
• Citation: 452 F. Supp. 1147
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America and United States Postal Service, Plaintiffs, v. CITY OF ST. LOUIS et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Missouri

452 F. Supp. 1147

UNITED STATES of America and United States Postal Service, Plaintiffs, v. CITY OF ST. LOUIS et al., Defendants.

No. 77-1012C(1).

United States District Court, E. D. Missouri, E. D.

April 25, 1978.

Wesley D. Wedemeyer, Asst. U.S. Atty., St. Louis, Mo., David J. Anderson, Larry Moore, Attys., Dept. of Justice, Washington, D.C., for plaintiffs.

Thomas J. Ray, Asst. City Counselor, St. Louis, Mo., John H. Goffstein, Bartley, Goffstein, Bollato & Lange, Clayton, Mo., Peter J. Carre, Mozart G. Ratner, P.C., Washington, D.C., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM

MEREDITH, Chief Judge.

This matter is before the Court on the motion of plaintiffs, United States of America and the United States Postal Service (hereinafter "Postal Service"), for partial summary judgment and on the motions of defendants the City of St. Louis and the National Association of Letter Carriers Branch No. 343 (hereinafter "Union") to dismiss or alternatively to stay proceedings and to dismiss or alternatively for summary judgment. For the reasons stated below, the motion of plaintiffs for partial summary judgment will be denied. The motion of defendants for summary judgment on Count I will be granted. Count II will be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. Defendants' motion for a stay of proceeding will be denied as moot.

This case is the product of a continuing dispute between the Postal Service management and labor representatives of the letter carriers over the routes of mailmen. The continuing question is: whether postmen must use sidewalks, or whether they may, on their own initiative, or must, on the command of their superiors, take off across country, using private lawns as thoroughfares. The Postal Service wants the routes measured along shortcuts, across lawns, so that one postman can cover more houses in less time. The Union wants the routes measured along the sidewalks, which results in one postman covering fewer houses in more time, and consequently in the employment of more postmen.

The Postal Service is an independent establishment of the Executive Branch of the United States Government, established in 1971 by 39 U.S.C. § 201, to provide postal service, and empowered to sue in its official name by 39 U.S.C. § 401(1).

The Union is a labor organization, representing seventeen hundred letter carriers employed by the Postal Service in the St. Louis metropolitan area, and affiliated with the National Association of Letter Carriers, AFL-CIO.

The City of St. Louis (hereinafter "City") is a municipal corporation established and existing under the laws of the State of Missouri within the Eastern District of Missouri.

The United States and the Postal Service brought this action on September 20, 1977, against the City and against the Union, and certain Union officers. In Count I, plaintiffs challenge the constitutionality of City Ordinance No. 57335, which declares lawn crossing, even by mailmen, a trespass. In Count II, plaintiffs allege that Union defendants violated their collective bargaining agreement with the Postal Service. Jurisdiction is alleged under 28 U.S.C. § 1345 and 39 U.S.C. §§ 409(a) and 1208.

Regional Instructions No. 331-1, City Delivery Service, Section XIII E, January 15, 1968, provide that a:

"Carrier may cross lawns while making deliveries if patrons do not object and there are no particular hazards to the carrier."

This language is incorporated into the applicable collective bargaining agreement:

"Letter carriers may cross lawns while making deliveries if customers do not object and there are no particular hazards to the carrier." (Agreement between the United States Postal Service and Four National Postal Labor Unions, September 4, 1975, Article XLI, sec. 3N.)

An arbitration award under that agreement purports to confirm the management right to require a carrier to cross lawns as agreed. (United States Postal Service and National Association of Letter Carriers. Grievance No. NC-C-178, December 23, 1976.)

In an unsigned document, dated January 7, 1977, and styled "Memorandum for the Record", Edward M. Hubert, S.C. Director of Employee & Labor Relations, reported his version of a meeting held on January 5, 1977, in the Postmaster's office between the Postal Service and Union officials:

"Both parties agreed that (a) the carrier makes the initial decision whether or not to cross a lawn or take available short cut, (b) that management has the authority to direct a carrier to take an available short cut which may be crossing a lawn unless there is a documented customer objection on file on form 3982, or a safety hazard. Further the union will advise their memebers sic of this authority."

The Union declares that the language of the Memorandum, which they neither signed nor acquiesced in, reads:

". . . (a) the carrier makes the final decision whether or not to cross a lawn . . ."

though how that language can be reconciled with section (b) is not explained.

On March 22, 1977, Municipal Ordinance No. 57335, a proviso to the general trespass ordinance, section 795.010 of the Municipal Code of the City of St. Louis, was signed into law. Section 795.010 provides in part:

"No person, without lawful authority, or without the express or implied consent of the owner or his agent, shall enter .. on any inclosed or improved real estate, . . . in the City; or, being upon the land of another shall fail, or refuse to leave same when requested so to do by the person lawfully in possession thereof, his agent or representative ..."

Ordinance No. 57335 amends section 795.010 as follows:

"Provided further, all delivery personnel, including letter carriers, whether employed by a private firm or government agency or government supported corporation, shall use sidewalks and accepted and approved walkways and shall refrain from traversing lawns or other private property not normally used as a walkway by the general public in order to effect delivery."

On May 24, 1977, Edward Marlotte, a uniformed Postal Service letter carrier, was served by Robert E. Steele, a St. Louis City Policeman, with citation No. 77-75054, and charged with violating the Ordinance in the course of his duty. Marlotte's case was removed from the circuit court to the federal district court, and later was remanded to the circuit court.

On June 1, 1977, the Union initiated a grievance against the Postal Service about lawn crossings, which as Case No. NC-C-7851 is still in arbitration before the parties' National Arbitration Panel.

On June 15, 1977, the Postal Service wrote the Mayor of St. Louis, demanding that the City "cease any and all efforts to regulate the conduct of Federal postal employees on official business."

On July 26, 1977, the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division of the Department of Justice wrote the Mayor of St. Louis, demanding that the City "take such steps as are necessary to render the subject ordinance null and void and of no further force and effect in relation to United States Postal Service's letter carriers."

On September 20, 1977, plaintiffs United States and the Postal Service brought this action, seeking a declaration that Ordinance No. 57335 is unconstitutional and void, and a permanent injunction enjoining the defendant City and its agents from interfering with the Postal Service letter carriers while they are about their official duties, as well as various injunctions and declarations about the conduct of the Union and its officers.

On December 21, 1977, this action was transferred from Court 3 to Court 1.

Now pending are the motions by Union defendant to dismiss or alternatively for a stay of proceedings pending arbitration or for summary judgment, filed November 14, 1977, and the motion of plaintiffs for summary judgment on Count I.

Plaintiffs' legal theory in Count I is that Ordinance No. 57335 is unconstitutional because it is an attempt by the City to regulate in an area preempted by federal regulation.

Ordinance No. 57335 is based on the common law of trespass. The ordinance declares that a mailman, like any other invitee, is licensed to use those paths which the householder provides for access, and that when the mailman cuts across the lawn, rather than using the sidewalk provided, he becomes a trespasser. The Postal Service chooses to argue that it has, by internal policy statements, memoranda, and collective bargaining agreements, obtained for its agents the right to trespass. As this contended right is in derogation of the common law, it must be carefully examined.

Plaintiffs argue that the regional instructions and collective bargaining agreement announced as applicable to St. Louis in the January 5, 1977, meeting of which plaintiffs made a unilateral, informal memorandum, the "Memorandum for the Record", all quoted above, are legitimate Postal Service regulations permitting lawn crossing. Therefore, plaintiffs argue, the City's trespass ordinance is void as applied to mailmen, as it is preempted by the federal regulation.

Congress may, pursuant to its power to regulate commerce, U.S.Const., Art. I, § 8, prohibit state regulation in the same area. But, traditionally, "the historic police powers of the States were not to be superseded by the Federal Act unless that was the clear and manifest purpose of Congress." Rice v. Santa Fe Elevator Corp., 331 U.S. 218, 230, 67 S.Ct. 1146, 1152, 91 L.Ed. 1447 (1947). If Congress clearly intended itself as the sole regulator, state laws are preempted by valid Congressional regulation, even if the state laws are only supplementary. City of Burbank v. Lockheed Air Terminal, Inc., 411 U.S. 624, 633, 93 S.Ct. 1854, 36 L.Ed.2d 547 (1973). And even where Congressional regulation is not exclusive, it displaces any state laws with which the federal regulations conflict. U.S. Const., Art. VI. To determine whether there is a conflict, the Court must decide whether the state law "stands as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes...