Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/364/642/
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 20:09:23+00:00

Document:
In 1945, when the Railway Labor Act prohibited union shop agreements between railroads and labor unions, nonunion employees of a railroad brought a suit against the railroad and certain unions of its employees which resulted in a consent decree forbidding the defendants to discriminate against nonunion employees because of their refusal to join unions. After the Act was amended in 1951 so as to permit union shop agreements between railroads and labor unions, the petitioner unions moved that the decree be modified so as not to prohibit the defendants from entering into such agreements. The District Court, which had retained jurisdiction of the suit, denied the motion.
Held: it erred in doing so. Pp. 364 U. S. 643-653.
(a) It would have been an abuse of discretion to deny modification of the injunction had it not resulted from a consent decree, since a change in the law had expressly made lawful what had theretofore been forbidden. Pennsylvania v. Wheeling & Belmont Bridge Co., 18 How. 421. Pp. 364 U. S. 646-650.
(b) A different conclusion is not required by the fact that the injunction was incorporated in a consent decree, since the decree was a judicial act, and not a mere contract between the parties. Pp. 364 U. S. 650-651.
(c) It was the Railway Labor Act, and only incidentally the parties, that the District Court served in entering the consent decree; and that Court must be free to continue to further the objectives of the Act after its provisions have been amended. Pp. 364 U. S. 651-653.
"unlawful for any carrier to interfere in any way with the organization of its employees, or to use the funds of the carrier in maintaining or assisting or contributing to any labor organization, labor representative, or other agency of collective bargaining, or in performing any work therefor, or to influence or coerce employees in an effort to induce them to join or remain or not to join or remain members of any labor organization . . ."
and which forbid any carrier from requiring "any person seeking employment to sign any contract or agreement promising to join . . . a labor organization. . . ." Also relied upon was the duty of the exclusive bargaining agent to represent fairly and without discrimination all members of the class represented. See Steele v. Louisville & Nashville R. Co., 323 U. S. 192. The factual allegations set forth a pattern of discriminations effected by the railroad and the defendant unions against nonunion employees.
"in consideration of the sum of $5,000.00 this day paid to the undersigned . . . and the consent of said defendants to the entry of a decree in said action, a copy of which is attached hereto. . . ."
"are further enjoined, in the application of the provisions of the regularly adopted bargaining agreements in effect between the defendant Railroad and the defendant Unions, or that may be hereafter in effect between the defendant Railroad and the defendant Unions in accordance with the provisions of the Railway Labor Act, from discriminating against the plaintiffs and the classes represented by them in this action by reason of or on account of the refusal of said employes to join or retain their membership in any of defendant labor organizations, or any labor organization. . . ."
The District Court, 165 F.Supp. 443, 445, retained jurisdiction over the matter "for the purpose of entering such further orders as may be deemed necessary or proper."
"shall have no prospective application to prohibit defendants, or any of them, from negotiating, entering into, or applying and enforcing, any agreement or agreements authorized by Section 2, Eleventh, of the Railway Labor Act, as amended January 10, 1951."
to agree, as they did, that the non-union members should not then be required to join or maintain membership in any of their craft unions as a condition precedent to employment. The law so prohibited, Section 152, Fourth and Fifth, Title 45, United States Code Annotated, Railway Labor Act. The railroad and unions went further to provide by their agreement that no such requirement of union membership should thereafter be in effect in any bargaining agreement in accordance with the provisions of the Railway Labor Act. The 1951 amendment to the Act did no more than make negotiations for a union shop permissive, Railway Employees' Dept. v. Hanson, supra. The amendment did not nullify the agreement or the injunction. It did not prohibit an agreement between the railroad and the unions that a union shop should not exist. Hence, the Court leaves the parties as they agreed to be and to remain."
165 F.Supp. 443, 449. Though making it clear that evidence of continued union hostility against nonunion employees was not decisive, the District Court gave some weight to the administrative difficulty of preventing unlawful discriminations against nonunion employees that might be facilitated if there were a union shop. The Sixth Circuit affirmed "for the reasons set forth in the opinion of Chief Judge Shelbourne" in the District Court. 272 F.2d 56, 58. We granted certiorari because of the importance of the issues involved. 362 U.S. 948.
"We are not doubtful of the power of a court of equity to modify an injunction in adaptation to changed conditions though it was entered by consent. . . . Power to modify the decree was reserved by its very terms, and so, from the beginning, went hand in hand with its restraints. If the reservation had been omitted, power there still would be by force of principles inherent in the jurisdiction of the chancery. A continuing decree of injunction directed to events to come is subject always to adaptation as events may shape the need. Ladner v. Siegel, 298 Pa. 487, 494, 495."
of the court to apply modified measures to changed circumstances.
Where there is such a balance of imponderables, there must be wide discretion in the District Court. But discretion is never without limits, and these limits are often far clearer to the reviewing court when the new circumstances involve a change in law, rather than facts. When the decree in this case was originally made, union shop agreements were prohibited by the Railway Labor Act, and thus constituted in themselves a form of statutorily forbidden discrimination. Congress has since, in the clearest terms, legislated that bargaining for and the existence of a union shop contract, satisfying the conditions provided in § 2 Eleventh of the Railway Labor Act, are not forbidden discriminations by union or employer. Congress has therefore determined that whatever ways such a union shop arrangement facilitates other, unauthorized discriminations must be borne as inescapable incidents of a legislatively approved contract term.
by the union shop clause have been legislatively determined to be an expense more than offset by the benefits of such a provision.
be enforced. There is no longer any interference with the enjoyment of the public right inconsistent with law, no more than there would be where the plaintiff himself had consented to it, after the rendition of the decree. Suppose the decree had been executed, and after that the passage of the law in question, can it be doubted but that the defendants would have had a right to reconstruct it? And is it not equally clear that the right to maintain it, if not abated, existed from the moment of the enactment?"
The principles of the Wheeling Bridge case have repeatedly been followed by lower federal and state courts. [Footnote 6] We find no reason to recede from them.
event, a court does not abdicate its power to revoke or modify its mandate, if satisfied that what it has been doing has been turned through changing circumstances into an instrument of wrong. We reject the argument for the interveners that a decree entered upon consent is to be treated as a contract and not as a judicial act. . . . But, in truth, what was then adjudged was not a contract as to anyone. The consent is to be read as directed toward events as they then were. It was not an abandonment of the right to exact revision in the future if revision should become necessary in adaptation to events to be."
This Court has never departed from that general rule. [Footnote 7] We continue to adhere to it because of the policy it expresses. The parties cannot, by giving each other consideration, purchase from a court of equity a continuing injunction. In a case like this, the District Court's authority to adopt a consent decree comes only from the statute which the decree is intended to enforce. Frequently, of course, the terms arrived at by the parties are accepted without change by the adopting court. But, just as the adopting court is free to reject agreed-upon terms as not in furtherance of statutory objectives, so must it be free to modify the terms of a consent decree when a change in law brings those terms in conflict with statutory objectives. In short, it was the Railway Labor Act, and only incidentally the parties, that the District Court served in entering the consent decree now before us. The court must be free to continue to further the objectives of that Act when its provisions are amended.
The parties have no power to require of the court continuing enforcement of rights the statute no longer gives.
of the equity court and decide for it once and for all what was equitable and what was not, because the court was not acting to enforce a promise, but to enforce a statute.
45 U.S.C. § 152, Eleventh. See Railway Employees' Department v. Hanson, 351 U. S. 225.
"On motion and upon such terms as are just, the court may relieve a party or his legal representative from a final judgment, order, or proceeding for the following reasons: . . . (5) . . . it is no longer equitable that the judgment should have prospective application; or (6) any other reason justifying relief from the operation of the judgment."
In the view we take of the case, we need not consider whether such a commitment of indefinite duration is valid.
In McGrath v. Potash, 91 U.S.App.D.C. 94, 199 F.2d 166, after Congress passed a statute excluding from the requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act deportation proceedings, the District of Columbia Circuit vacated an injunction against the Government requiring compliance with that Act. There are many cases where a mere change in decisional law has been held to justify modification of an outstanding injunction. E.g., Ladner v. Siegel, 298 Pa. 487, 148 A. 699 (whether a garage in a residential district is a nuisance); Santa Rita Oil & Gas Co. v. State Board of Equalization, 112 Mont. 359, 116 P.2d 1012 (what federal instrumentalities are exempt from state taxation); Coca-Cola Co. v. Standard Bottling Co., 138 F.2d 788 (whether the use of the word "cola" infringed Coca-Cola's trademark); and see Western Union Tel. Co. v. International Brotherhood, 133 F.2d 955 (whether ordinary strikes are forbidden by the Sherman Act and what picketing can constitutionally be enjoined).
"We know of no case which holds that a consent decree imposing a continuing injunction deprives the court of its supervisory jurisdiction in the matter."
We consider unpersuasive the argument of the railroad that, in 1945, there was already on foot a movement to amend the Railway Labor Act so as to permit union shop agreements.
This controversy commenced in 1945 prior to the time when so-called union shop agreements were authorized by Congress. Act of Jan. 10, 1951, 64 Stat. 1238, 45 U.S.C. § 152, Eleventh. Since the date of that law, which we upheld in Railway Employes' Dept. v. Hanson, 351 U. S. 225, employees and carriers may negotiate that type of agreement, though they are not required to do so. Id., p. 351 U. S. 231. Prior to that date, however, a union shop was barred by law in this industry, and a union that discriminated against nonunion members was accountable to them. See Steele v. Louisville & N. R. Co., 323 U. S. 192, 323 U. S. 207.
Twenty-eight nonunion members sued petitioners, in 1945, claiming damages in the amount of $140,000. The complaint purported to state a class action. But the case never came to trial. A settlement was reached which provided for (a) the payment of $5,000 in cash; (b) the waiver and release by the 28 plaintiffs of all their claims; and (c) a consent decree which would protect "the undersigned" against future acts of discrimination by petitioners.
The consent decree did not purport to protect future employees. By its terms, it protected only "the plaintiffs in this action and all other employes of the defendant Railroad employed in" designated crafts or classes and not members of the union. The petitioners agreed to refrain from discriminating "against the plaintiffs and the classes represented by them."
I do not think the consent decree, read in light of the settlement, did more than settle claims of then-existing employees. Employees hired in the future were, by its terms, not included. Yet apparently a host of them have intervened, seeking the protection of the status quo created by that decree. I use the word "apparently" because the record does not show which intervenors were on the payroll of the carrier in 1945. Those who became employed after that date plainly are not entitled to the protection of the decree. Of those who were employed at that time, we know that some are still employed. Of the latter group, at least seven of the original 28 employees are still on the payroll. These seven released valuable claims for settling their disputes. It is harsh and unjust to deprive them of those fruits of the settlement. Whether there are others employed in 1945 who have a like claim to fair dealing is impossible to tell from the record.
terms and gave nothing up in exchange for it. To construe it to include them would as a result of changing circumstances turn the consent decree "into an instrument of wrong." United States v. Swift & Co., supra, 286 U. S. 115. But when we set aside the decree as respects those who gave up something of value to get it, we do an injustice. I think the applicable principle is stated in United States v. Swift & Co., supra, 286 U. S. 119: "The injunction, whether right or wrong, is not subject to impeachment in its application to the conditions that existed at its making."

References: v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 § 2
 § 152
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 § 152
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v.