Yazoo & M. V. R. Co. v. Mitchell
| Decision Date | 10 June 1935 |
| Docket Number | 31164 |
| Parties | YAZOO & M. V. R. CO. v. MITCHELL |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
MASTER AND SERVANT.
Switchman held to have ratified promulgation by railroad and union authorities of roster of employees following consolidation of two switching yards in interest of economy, precluding recovery against railroad for less of seniority.
APPEAL from circuit court of Hinds county, HON. W. H. POTTER, Judge.
Action by S. S. Mitchell against the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad Company. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Reversed and rendered.
Reversed and judgment here for appellant.
Burch Minor & McKay, of Memphis, Tenn., and May, Sanders, McLaurin & Byrd, of Jackson, for appellant.
We call the court's particular attention to the agreement on which plaintiff says he is entitled to recover, and denominated the Switchmen's Union Agreement. The most that can be said for the alleged agreement is that it fixes the rules and regulations concerning rates of pay, hours of service and working conditions, without reference to any length of service to be performed and without reference to the hiring of any individual employee, and without any agreement of the Union to furnish any employees at all.
Booles v. Sachs et al., 37 Minn. 315; M. K. & T. Ry. Co. v Bagley, 60 Kan. 424, 56 P. 759; Wilkinson v. Heavenrich et al., 26 N.W. 139; Morrow v. Southern Express Co., 28 S.E. 998; 9 Cyc. 327.
Nowhere in the Switchmen's Union contract is it provided that any individual switchman will work for any length of time, and Mitchell does not testify that he agreed to work for any particular length of time, and the most that can be said is that the agreement says that no switchman will be discharged or suspended without sufficient cause, but we submit that the authorities are practically unanimous that a hiring for life or a permanent hiring or a continuous hiring is merely a hiring at will and may be terminated by either party at will without incurring any damages.
Rape v. Mobile & Ohio R. Co., 136 Miss. 38, 100 So. 585, 35 A.L.R. 1422.
Our court is not by itself in the holding announced in the Rape case.
East Line & Red River Railroad Co. v. Scott, 72 Tex. 70, 13 Am. St. Rep. 758; St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Ry. Co. v. W. J. Mathews, 64 Ark. 398, 42 S.W. 902, 39 L.R.A. 467; Bolles v. Sachs, 37 Minn. 315; Davis v. Davis, Director General of Railroads, 151 N.E. 134; Combs v. Standard Oil Co., 59 S.W.2d 525; 39 C. J. 71, 72; Hudson v. C. N. O. & T. P. R. Co., 154 S.W. 47; Warden v. Hinds, 163 F. 201, 25 L.R.A. (N.S.) 529; Savannah F. & W. Ry. Co. v. Willett, 31 So. 246; Bentley v. Smith et al., 59 S.E. 720; 1 Williston on Contracts, pages 59 and 61; Morrow v. Southern Express Co., 28 S.E. 998; C. & G. E. Railroad Co. v. Dane, 43 N.Y. 240; L. & N. R. R. Co. v. Offutt, 99 Ky. 427, 59 Am. St. Rep. 467; Elmore v. Atlantic, etc., Ry. Co., 191 N.C. 182, 43 A.L.R. 1072; Boyer v. Western Union Tel. Co., 124 F. 246; Reasonor v. Watts, 51 L.R.A. (N.S.) 629; LaBatt on Master & Servant, page 328, sec. 89; 18 R. C. L., page 494, sec. 4; 13 C. J., page 337, sec. 188, and page 341, sec. 192.
The plaintiff sues also on the lease contract between the A. & V. and the Y. & M. V., which, he says, coupled with the Switchmen's Union contract, gives him the right of recovery. We submit that a reading of the provisions of this contract will demonstrate that not only was it not for the benefit of Mitchell, but by its very terms it excluded any right that Mitchell or anyone else might have other than the parties.
The case involves far more than the judgment recovered by the plaintiff. It involves the whole principle of collective bargaining, a principle for which labor has fought for several centuries.
The Supreme Court of Mississippi stands in the forefront of American courts in upholding the principle of collective bargaining, and in an able pioneer opinion has held that the collective bargaining of a labor union extends not only to its members but also to non-members working under similar conditions.
Y. & M. V. R. R. Co. v. Sideboard, 161 Miss. 13; Chambers v. Davis, 128 Miss. 614; Hunt v. Dunlap, 248 S.W. 760; Shaup v. Grand International Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers et al., 135 So. 327; Donovan et al. v. Travers et al., 118 N.E. 705; Piercy v. L. & N. R. R. Co., 198 Ky. 477, 248 S.W. 1042, 33 A.L.R. 322.
To hold that notwithstanding the elaborate machinery set up by the union to make contracts and adjust controversies in the interest of all members, each individual member may accept or reject the final decision of the last tribunal to which the controversy may be appealed, as it pleases or displeases him, and assert rights against his employer contrary to the contract, or modification of the contract, or decision made by the authorized executives of the union, would be utterly destructive of the principle of collective bargaining to which this court is rightly committed and to sustain which our government is at this very time exercising every influence and power at its command.
Maloney v. United Mine Workers, 308 Pa. 251, 162 A. 225; Long v. B. & O. R. Co., 141 A. 504; Snay v. Lovely, 176 N.E. 791; Mulcahy v. Huddle, 172 N.E. 796; West v. B. & O. R. Co., 137 S.E. 654; Crisler v. Crum, 213 N.W. 366; Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen v. Barnhill, 108 So. 456; Fish v. Huddle, 51 F.2d 319; McMurray v. Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, 54 F.2d 923; Webster v. Rankins, 50 S.W.2d 746; McClure v. L. & N. R. Co., 64 S.W.2d 539; Caulfield v. Y. & M. V. R. R. Co., 127 So. 585.
Watkins & Eager, of Jackson, for appellee.
The individual member is bound by the action of the trade union only insofar as the internal machinery, rules, discipline and conduct are concerned, and any attempt to represent or bind the member exceeding these limits is unauthorized and not binding on the member.
Independent Order of Sons and Daughters of Jacob of America v. Wilkes, 98 Miss. 179, 53 So. 403, 52 L.R.A. (N.S.) 817; Woodmen v. Ramsey, 118 Miss. 461; Supreme Lodge of the Order of Select Friends v. Raymond, 49 L.R.A. 373; Y. & M. V. v. Sideboard, 161 Miss. 4, 14, 133 So. 669; Piercy v. Louisville & Nashville R. R. Co., 198 Ky. 477, 248 S.W. 1042; Grand International Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers v. Green, 210 Ala. 496, 98 So. 569, 44 S.Ct. 636, 265 U.S. 576, 68 L.Ed. 1187.
No effort was made by either the appellant or the Switchmen's Union of North America "to revise or abrogate" the contract under which the appellee was employed, and as is expressly thereby provided.
The officials of the Switchmen's Union of North America were not vested with the authority which they sought to assert in promulgating the consolidated seniority roster of September 12, 1931.
Under construction of the constitution made by international president, Mitchell was not required to submit his controversy to union officials and is not bound by their action.
Section 10, Constitution of the Switchmen's Union of North America.
Appellee not required to submit to Switchmen's Union, but, even if such be true, procedure provided by by-laws not followed by the union and appellant.
Under the agreement, if appellant saw fit as a means of convenience to consolidate the work of the two yards, it must in all events preserve the seniority of those in the Cherry Street yard.
Y. & M. V. v. Sideboard, 161 Miss. 4, 133 So. 669; Webb case, 64 F.2d 902; Robinson v. Dahm, 159 N.Y.S. 1053, 94 Misc. 729.
The verdict is not excessive.
Pierce v. Tennessee Coal & Iron Co., 43 L.Ed. 591, 173 U.S. 1; Story Parchment Co. v. Paterson Parchment Paper Co., 282 U.S. 555, 51 S.Ct. 248, 75 L.Ed. 544; Cutter v. Gillette, 163 Mass. 95, 39 N.E. 1010.
Chalmers Potter, of Jackson, for appellee.
Having assumed the Switchman's Union contract entered into by the lessee and having created thereafter the relation of master and servant between itself and the plaintiff, we most respectfully submit that regardless of the rule that parties have a right to exclude from the benefit of a contract anyone except the parties thereto that this rule has no application in the instant case.
Under the law of contract it is undoubtedly the rule that in order for a contract to be valid both parties must be bound thereby, and if only one is bound the contract is thereby said to be unilateral, lacking in mutuality and therefore void.
But in cases affecting labor unions an entirely different situation is presented. In such a situation it is impossible for the railroad company to know for any length of time ahead exactly the number of men that will be required to operate its trains, its switch-yards, its round-houses, its labor jobs, warehouses, signal apparatuses and other such ramifications. It, however, is interested in having a reservoir of competent and trained labor at all times available to it regardless of the extent of its demands. It therefore says to its men as evidence by the so-called labor union contracts that while it is true that I do not promise or agree to work any man on any day nor does any man agree to work for the railroad at any time or on any day, yet if you will hold yourself in readiness to work whenever called the railroad on its part does hereby promise and obligate itself, that for your so doing and holding yourself in readiness that when there is work available that that work shall be given to those men in order of their seniority, that is to say that men oldest in point of service shall be given preference in all available work.
Y. & M. V. R. R. Co. v. Sideboard, 133 So. 699; Maisel v. Sigman, 205 N.Y.S. 807; Nederlandoch v. Stevedores Society et...
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