Wilson v. Hey

• Decision Date: 20 February 1908
• Citation: 232 Ill. 389,83 N.E. 928
• Parties: WILSON et al. v. HEY et al.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

232 Ill. 389

83 N.E. 928

WILSON et al.

v.HEY et al.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Feb. 20, 1908.

Appeal from Appellate Court, Fourth District, on Appeal from Circuit Court, Randolph County; Charles T. Moore, Judge.

Action by John E. Wilson and another against Roy Hey and others to restrain defendants from interfering with plaintiffs, their servants or employés, and from boycotting plaintiffs. From a judgment (128 Ill. App. 227) for plaintiffs, defendants appeal. Affirmed.

Scott and Farmer, JJ., dissenting.

O. A. Harker and A. E. Crisler, for appellants.

H. Clay Horner, for appellees.

CARTWRIGHT, J.

The appellees John E. Wilson and John T. Wilson are partners, and have been engaged in business many years in Sparta, a city of Randolph county, having a population of 3,000 at the last census. Their business has been that of liverymen, hackmen, and drayment, and they have owned and used a large number of teams, wagons, and vehicles furnished to the public for hire. Their business included hauling freight for merchants and others, and carrying passengers, boarding horses for customers, furnishing storage for a hearse, and a team for hauling the hearse. They also owned a building known as the ‘Auditorium,’ which they rented for lectures and exhibitions. There have also been in Sparta organizations or unions of laborers, among which are the Team Drivers' International Union No. 109, the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of Ameri ca No. 479, the Brotherhood of Painters, Decorators, and Paper Hangers of America No. 74, and the United Mine Workers of America No. 659. These are subordinate unions to the Sparta local union of the American Federation of Labor, which is a general organization combining all trades and callings, and there is another organization known as the ‘Sparta Central Trades & Labor Assembly,’ composed of delegates from each of the subordinate unions. At various times since 1900 there have been difficulties between the appellees and the labor unions, and the Team Drivers' Union has demanded of the appellees the employment of none but union team drivers on their teams or on any hack or omnibus. One of these difficulties was in 1903 about hauling brick to the schoolhouse. It was a short haul, and the appellees used two teams for three wagons, so as to leave one wagon standing for loading or unloading. A committee of the union called upon one of appellees and informed him that he was preventing men from working, and ordered him to put a team and driver on each wagon. He pleaded economy, and that there was no necessity for a team on each wagon; but after a hearing the Trades & Labor Assembly ordered a team for each wagon, which was put on until appellees could hear from an appeal taken to the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. They received a communication from Cornelius P. Shea, the president, declining to interfere, and they complied with the order. In 1901 the Team Drivers' Union published a notice in a newspaper requesting all union men not to patronize appellees until they should comply with some agreement with them, but all the difficulties were settled by appellees yielding to the demands made. In the spring of 1904 there was trouble over the building of a church in Sparta, when appellees were notified to take their teams off. On April 14, 1904, the appellees and officers of the Team Drivers' Union signed a contract, in which the appellees agreed ‘to work only union team drivers on all teams; also to employ federation members at all other work as helpers.’ The contract contained this further agreement on the part of appellees: ‘In case no union man can be had from either union, we can employ another only for a short time, and if he or they work for more than one day we agree to retain one dollar on his or their application to join the American Federation of Labor No. 7231, or the Team Drivers' Union No. 109.’ In November, 1904, there was a new difficulty between the parties growing out of that contract. The dispute was over the claim that appellees had not retained the proper amount of money from nonunion employés. Appellees claimed that there was only $1 due on a man named Dude Wilson, and that was paid, but the union claimed that appellees owed $5 on account of nonunion men. Appellees refused to pay the $4, and the Team Drivers' Union put them on what was called the ‘unfair list,’ and reported such action to the local union of the Federation of Labor and the Trades & Labor Assembly. The Trades & Labor Assembly endeavored to have appellees yield, and upon their refusal the assembly appointed a committee of three to inform the business men generally in Sparta, a part of whom had been in the habit of having appellees haul their freight, and who were accustomed to deal with them, that appellees were on the ‘unfair list.’ The members of the various unions ceased to patronize appellees, and some of those to whom notices were given did the same. There were some who paid no attention to the notice, but continued to employ and deal with appellees as before. A bill of paint sold by one man, which was delivered by appellees, was sent back for that reason, and he was compelled to take it back. There was no threat made by the committee in connection with the notice, but it was understood by various parties who received it that their business would be injured and trade withdrawn unless they complied with it. A series of lectures were to be given under the auspices of the school board, and the Auditorium was engaged for that purpose. An officer of the school board was notified not to hire the Auditorium by a committee, who stated that they were acting as a committee of one of the unions. The Trades & Labor Assembly on January 26, 1905, notified the lyceum bureau that the Auditorium, in which the lectures were to be given, was on the ‘we don't patronize’ list, and the board was requested to arrange to have the lectures delivered elsewhere. The union afterward granted the request of the school board and removed the ban. A committee called on the undertaker who owned the hearse and notified him not to use appellees' team to haul his hearse at a funeral, and the noticewas complied with. A similar notice was given in another case.

Appellees filed their bill in this case in the circuit court of Randolph county setting up these facts, and making the appellants, who are the unions and their officers, defendants, and praying for an injunction against interfering with the appellees, their servants or employés, from boycotting the appellees, their teams, or vehicles, or business, and from giving notices with the intent or calculated to deter the public from doing business with them. Later a supplemental bill was filed alleging acts of interference with the business of appellants after the filing of the original bill. Answers were filed denying the material allegations of the bill and supplemental bill, and there was a hearing in open court, at which a large number of witnesses were examined, and documentary evidence was introduced. A decree was entered finding the allegations of the bill and supplemental bill to be true, granting an injunction substantially as prayed for in the bill against putting appellees or their employés on the ‘unfair list’ and from boycotting appellees, or going to or sending commitees to their customers to induce or compel them to withold their trade from appellees, and from menacing or interfering with their business in furtherance of the conspiracy against them.

The facts are not in dispute, and the argument for appellants is based on the proposition that nothing wrong or unlawful was done. The jurisdiction of equity is not questioned, if there was a wrongful interference with the rights of appellees; but counsel say that it was neither unlawful to refuse to deal with appellees nor to notify others of such refusal, and to try to induce them, by peaceable means, not to patronize appellees. The rights of labor unions and the extent to which they may lawfully go have been pretty fully explained in O'Brien v. People, 216 Ill. 354, 75 N. E. 108,108 Am. St. Rep. 219, and Franklin Union v. People. 220 Ill. 355, 77 N. E. 176,4 L. R. A. (N. S.) 1001, 110 Am. St. Rep. 248. The right of laboring people to organize for the purpose of promoting their common welfare by lawful means is fully recognized. They may refuse to work for any particular employer, and may obtain employment for their members by solicitation and promises of support in trade and otherwise, but in the accomplishment of their purpose they must proceed only by lawful and peaceable means, and they have no right to make war on other persons. It is not wrong for members of a union to cease patronizing any one when they regard if for their interest to do so, but they have no right to compel others to break off business relations with the one from whom they have withdrawn their patronage, and to do this by unlawful means, with the motive of injuring such person. Such means as giving notices which excite the fear or reasonable apprehension of other persons that their business will be injured unless they do break off such relations or cease patronizing another are wrong and unlawful. If the notices given or things done have the natural effect of exciting such reasonable fear and apprehension and accomplish the result intended, it is immaterial that they are not accompanied by direct threats. In this case a witness who said he did not pay any attention to the notice and did not cease to deal with appellees testified that the effect on his business was bad, and others testified that they notif...