The Connecticut labor news., 1922-03-10
By JOHN P. FREY

employment of some other person
 or with the right of some other
 person to dispose of his capital or
 his labor as he: wills.
 An action against a trade-unlOn,
 whether of Workmen or masters, or
 against any members or officials
 thereof on behalf of themselves and
 all other members of the trade-union
 in respect of any tortious act alleged
 to have been committed by or on
 behalf of the trade-union shall not
 be entertained by any court.
 Nothing in this section shall af-
 feet the liability of the trustees of
 trade-union to be used in the events
 provided for by the trade-un1on act,
 1871, section 9, except 1n respect of
 any tortious act committed by or on
 behalf of the union in cOntempla-
 tion or in furtherance of a trade
 dispute"
 In the most unnlistakable language this law prevents any invasion of the strikers rights by an injunction, so that the precedent established by V1ce-Chan- cellor Malin and the later injunction by Judge Farwell were made impossible in the future.
 The facts are then, that but two in functions were issued against Workmen ld, pudiated and condemned by the Lord case, upon the ground that court of equity had absolutely no jurisdiction in such a case; and the second was re- verSed by Parliament itself.
 American courts of equity there
 fore have no valid precedents to
 guide them, the facts being that the
 iniunctions issued i'll America III
 connection with industrial disputes
 are i'll direct disregard of the prece-
 dents of the highest Chancery Court
 and the British Parliament.
 In two other important aspects the American prarctice is contrary to the British precedents and authority.
 British courts of equity for many centuries have operated for ther el1et and protection of the weak against the powerf ful, and, early in the courts his tory, it protected the DOT from any un- just or too rigorous application of the common law. As Lord Chancellor Else mere said, Ill part:
 Tt Is the refuge of the poor and
 afflicted. It is the altar and sane
 tuary of such as against the might
 of rich men"
 In a measure, our Constitution was intended to be that very embodiment of all equitable principles and relief in written and unmistakable form, but the decision in the Arizona case, as we shall see in a later article, 1t was necessary to strain and distort this very Cppstitu- tion to den5 the people the right through their congress and their legislature in the several states to do what the British people through their Parliament have done, namely to protect themselves against the lnlquitous misuse of the in- junction.
 In England, the great power of the Court of Chancery was not used to as sist the rich and powerful ntheir op- pression of the poor and weak. The British court of equity has, for years, been governed by certain we'll recognized and basic principles among these being that:
 He who seeks equity must do
 equity. That Is to say, he who seeks the aid of this court, must come into it with clean hands, and Equity must never be used to
 curtail personal rights" One of the conditions connected with practically all of the injunctions issued by our American courts is that the plaintiff employer does not come into court with clean hands. In most in- stances, the employer has been the ag- gressor. He has reduced wages, en- forced obnoxious and injurious shop rules. He has acted i'll concert with other employers for the purpose of de Stroying the trade-union. He has struck the first blow. c1 has been the aggres- sor and as such, under the well estab- lished equity rule, he is not entitled to hearing in court of equity, or to the protection of an in junction. Furthermore, the injunctions issued by our American courts have grown into an infringement of personal rights. This latter subject will be considered in a separate article