Upholsterers' International Union of North America v. United Furniture Workers of America, C. I. O.

• Decision Date: 14 April 1947
• Docket Number: 3242
• Citation: 52 A.2d 217,356 Pa. 469
• Parties: Upholsterers' International Union of North America v. United Furniture Workers of America, C.I.O., et al., Appellants
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

52 A.2d 217

356 Pa. 469

Upholsterers' International Union of North America v. United Furniture Workers of America, C.I.O., et al., Appellants

No. 3242

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

April 14, 1947

Argued March 24, 1947

Appeal, No. 57, Jan. T., 1947, from decree of C.P Northampton County, Nov. T., 1946, No. 11, in case of Upholsterers' International Union of North America v United Furniture Workers of America, C.I.O. et al. Decree affirmed.

Proceeding upon defendants' petition and rule to dismiss bill in equity for lack of jurisdiction.

Order entered dismissing rule of defendants, opinion by FRACK, J Defendants appealed.

The decree of the court below is affirmed at the appellant's costs.

Harry Weinstock , with him John B. O'Brien and Levine & O'Brien , for appellants.

David B. Skillman , with him Darlington Hoopes , for appellee.

Before MAXEY, C.J., DREW, LINN, STERN, PATTERSON, STEARNE and JONES, JJ.

OPINION

MR. JUSTICE JONES

The question involved in this case is whether the court below has jurisdiction of the subject-matter of the suit, the question having been raised in limine by the defendants' petition under the Act of March 5, 1925, P.L. 23, 12 PS. 672 et seq. The court held that it has jurisdiction and from that decree the defendants appeal.

The plaintiff is the Upholsterers' International Union of North America, an unincorporated association affiliated with the A.F. of L. The defendants are the United Furniture Workers of America, and unincorporated association affiliated with the C.I.O., certain of its officers and agents, the Barkeley Upholstering Corporation and the Don-Ess Upholstery Shop, Inc., and certain of the officers and employees of those companies. The plaintiff seeks by this suit in equity to enjoin the corporate defendants from breaching labor relations agreements, said by the bill of complaint to subsist between the corporations and the plaintiff, and to restrain certain other of the defendants from inducing the employer companies and their employees to breach the said agreements as well as from doing acts which would prevent the plaintiff and the employer corporations from carrying out the terms of the agreements.

According to the bill of complaint, formal agreements in writing were separately executed on October 15, 1946, by each of the corporate defendants, viz., Barkeley Upholstering Corporation and Don-Ess Upholstery Shop, Inc., and by the plaintiff union purporting to act as the exclusive collective bargaining representative of all non-supervisory employees of each of the defendant companies at their respective plants located on adjoining properties in Easton, Pa. As the bill further recites, the plaintiff union's designation as such collective bargaining representative was by virtue of written authorizations signed by ninety of the ninety-one non-supervisory employees of the defendant companies.

The alleged wrongful acts committed by the defendant employers, whereof the bill complains, consist of an attempted or threatened breach of the above-mentioned labor relations agreements by each of said defendant companies which had notified the plaintiff union of the necessity of their breaching the said agreements and of signing and executing new labor relations agreements with the defendant union. The analogous acts committed by the defendant union, its officers and agents, as averred by the bill, consist of the invasion, intimidation and coercion of the plaintiff's members in the defendant companies' plants in an effort to effect their withdrawal from the plaintiff union and their subsequent affiliation with the defendant union and, further, the unlawful intimidation of the defendant corporations in an effort to induce them, by threats of strikes and "slow-downs", to repudiate their contracts with the plaintiff and to recognize the defendant union as the sole lawful collective bargaining representative of their employees. The plaintiff also avers that the defendant union has, in fact, succeeded to an extent in its wrongful purposes by causing certain of the plaintiff's members to transfer their allegiances to the defendant union and by causing them to remain away from work in violation of the plaintiff's agreements with the defendant employers as well as in making it virtually impossible for the parties signatory to the labor relations agreements of October 14, 1946, to carry out their terms fully and in good faith.

The plaintiff filed the bill of complaint, as above summarized, on November 6, 1946, and a rule was then granted on the defendants to show cause why a preliminary injunction should not issue. The bill was on the corporate defendants on November 7, 1946, and, on the same day service thereof was accepted in behalf of the defendant union, its officers and agents. On November 14, 1946, the defendant union filed with the National Labor Relations Board charges of unfair labor practices, alleging, inter alia, that the procurement and execution of the plaintiff's labor relations agreements with the Barkeley Upholstering Corporation and the Don-Ess Upholstery Shop, Inc., were the result of unfair labor practices by the defendant companies and that said agreements were, therefore, void and of no legal effect. On the following day, to wit, November 15th, the defendant union filed its petition in the court below questioning the court's jurisdiction of the subject-matter of the suit. A rule to show cause was granted on the petition. Several days later (November 18th) the plaintiff moved to strike off the petition, the court treating the motion as the plaintiff's answer to the petition. After argument, the learned court below dismissed the defendant union's petition, challenging the jurisdiction, and directed the defendants to file an answer to the plaintiff's bill of complaint within a time specified. From that...