Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/321/50/
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 14:15:26+00:00

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Justia › US Law › US Case Law › US Supreme Court › Volume 321 › Trainmen v. Toledo, P. & W. R. Co.
1. A railroad company which refused to submit a labor dispute to arbitration in accordance with provisions of the Railway Labor Act -- although it had sought to settle the dispute by negotiation and by mediation -- has not made "every reasonable effort" to settle the dispute within the meaning of § 8 of the Norris-LaGuardia Act, and is thereby barred from injunctive relief in the federal courts. P. 321 U. S. 56.
2. Section 8 of the Norris-LaGuardia Act extends to railway labor disputes. P. 321 U. S. 58.
3. The requirement of § 8 of the Norris-LaGuardia Act that a complainant must make "every reasonable effort" -- "either by negotiation or with the aid of any available governmental machinery of mediation or voluntary arbitration" -- to settle the labor dispute before he may have injunctive relief in the federal courts is not satisfied by his having resorted to one or two of the three prescribed methods of conciliation. P. 321 U. S. 60.
4. That, under § 8 of the Norris-LaGuardia Act, a complainant may not have injunctive relief if he has not submitted the labor dispute to arbitration does not make arbitration compulsory. P. 321 U. S. 62.
5. Failure to satisfy the requirements of § 8 of the Norris-LaGuardia Act does not leave the complainant without legal protection, but deprives him only of one form of remedy which Congress, exercising its plenary control over the jurisdiction of the federal courts, has seen fit to withhold. P. 321 U. S. 63.
6. The Court is not concerned with the wisdom of Acts of Congress. P. 321 U. S. 64.
7. Where a complainant has steadfastly refused to submit a labor dispute to arbitration, § 8 of the Norris-LaGuardia Act is not necessarily rendered inapplicable by the fact that some violence is involved. P. 321 U. S. 65.
Certiorari, 318 U.S. 755, to review the affirmance of an order granting a temporary injunction in a suit arising out of a labor dispute.
The important question is whether the District Court properly issued an injunction which restrained respondent's employees, conductors, yardmen, enginemen, and firemen from interfering by violence or threats of violence with its property and interstate railroad operations. The sole issues that concern us are the existence of federal jurisdiction and whether the requirements of the Norris-LaGuardia Act (29 U.S.C. §§ 107, 108, 47 Stat. 71, 72) were satisfied.
to strike. The time for stopping work was set for December 9 at 11:00 a.m. Respondent knew of the voting on or before December 6, but did not receive formal notice of the strike until about noon of December 8.
With the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, the Mediation Board again intervened, strongly urging both sides to settle the dispute in view of the national emergency. At the Board's request, the employees had postponed the strike indefinitely. [Footnote 1] Further conferences failed to bring agreement, and, on December 17, the Board again urged that the disputants agree to arbitration under the statute. This time, the employees accepted. [Footnote 2] But respondent continued its refusal, though it also continued to urge the appointment of an emergency board. And, while the record does not show that respondent was notified formally of the employees' agreement to arbitrate until December 28, neither does it appear that respondent did not know of this fact before that time.
again strongly urged arbitration, pointing out the employees had acceded to the Board's request. Respondent again declined and urged an emergency board be appointed.
The strike took effect at the appointed time. Picket lines were formed. Respondent undertook to continue operations with other employees. It employed "special agents" to protect its trains and property. [Footnote 3] Clashes occurred between them and the working employees, on the one hand, and the striking employees, on the other. Various incidents involving violence or threats of violence took place. Some resulted in personal attacks, others in damage to property and interruption of service. The respondent sought the aid of public authorities, including the sheriffs of counties along its right of way and police authorities in cities and towns which it served. Some assistance was offered, but in some instances the authorities replied they had forces inadequate to supply the aid respondent requested, and in others no reply was given. The parties are at odds concerning the extent of the violence, the need for public protection, and the adequacy of what was supplied or available. But the findings of the District Court are that the violence was substantial and the protection supplied by the public officials was inadequate. These incidents took place through the period extending from December 29, 1941, to January 3, 1942.
On the latter date, respondent filed its complaint, asking for a temporary restraining order and, after hearing, an injunction restraining petitioners from interfering with its operations and property. The restraining order issued ex parte the same day, respondent giving bond as required (29 U.S.C. § 107, 47 Stat. 71, 72) for indemnity against loss occasioned by its improvident or erroneous issuance.
evidence was not sufficient to show that the public authorities were unwilling or unable to furnish adequate protection for respondent's property; [Footnote 6] and (3) respondent did not make every reasonable effort to settle the dispute as required by the Norris-LaGuardia Act. [Footnote 7] Without passing upon the others, we think the last contention must be sustained.
negotiation or with the aid of any available governmental machinery of mediation or voluntary arbitration."
effort to settle the dispute, he is forbidden relief. The latter condition is broader than the former. One must not only discharge his legal obligations. He must also go beyond them and make all reasonable effort at the least by the methods specified, if they are available, though none may involve complying with any legal duty. Any other view would make the second condition wholly redundant. It clearly is not the section's purpose, therefore, by that condition to require only what one is compelled by law to do. Yet, as will appear, this would be the effect of accepting respondent's position.
for all of them, with the aid of governmental machinery in the stages of mediation and arbitration. Section 8 is not limited to railway labor disputes. But it includes them. [Footnote 13] And its very terms show they were used in explicit contemplation of the procedures and machinery then existing under the Railway Labor Act and with the intent of making their exhaustion conditions for securing injunctive relief not singly or alternatively, but conjunctively or successively, when available. This purpose of Congress is put beyond question when the section's legislative history is considered in the light of the history and the basic common policy of the two statutes, the Railway Labor Act and the Norris-LaGuardia Act.
of defense, available not only after other legally required methods, but after all reasonable methods as well, have been tried and found wanting. This purpose runs throughout the Act's provisions. It is dominant and explicit in Section 8. In short, the intent evidenced both by words and by policy was to gear the section's requirements squarely into the methods and procedures prescribed by the Railway Labor Act.
"So that there is the tie-up between the provisions of the railroad labor act and the necessity of exhausting every remedy to adjust any difference which might arise. The workers could not and would not think of going on strike before all the remedies provided in the law have been exhausted. If the railroads have complied, they would not, as has been suggested [by Representative Beck], be deprived of any relief which they may have in law or equity."
"That section provides that a complainant shall not be entitled to an injunction if he has not complied with any contract or obligation on his part or has not made every reasonable effort to settle the dispute by the available methods of arbitration or mediation. Surely this fundamental principle of equity that 'he who seeks justice must do justice' should apply in labor disputes as well as in other judicial controversies. [Footnote 17]"
To construe the section, therefore, as requiring but one of the three methods to be used when the other two are equally available would emasculate the language and would defeat the purpose and policy of the statute.
Respondent's final contention in this phase of the case is the most insistent. It is that, if "voluntary arbitration," as the term is used in Section 8, encompasses arbitration under the Railway Labor Act, by that fact, the arbitration ceases to be "voluntary," and the latter Act's requirement that it be so is violated. In short, it is said that effect is to force respondent to submit to compulsory arbitration.
"That the failure or refusal of either party to submit a controversy to arbitration shall not be construed as a violation of any legal obligation imposed upon such party by the terms of this Act or otherwise."
provides that failure to arbitrate shall not be construed as a violation of any legal obligation imposed upon the party failing by that Act or otherwise. Respondent's failure of refusal to arbitrate has not violated any obligation imposed upon it, whether by the Railway Labor Act or by the Norris-LaGuardia Act. No one has recourse against it by any legal means on account of this failure. Respondent is free to arbitrate or not, as it chooses. But if it refuses, it loses the legal right to have an injunction issued by a federal court, or, to put the matter more accurately, it fails to perfect the right to such relief. This is not compulsory arbitration. It is compulsory choice between the right to decline arbitration and the right to have the aid of equity in a federal court.
True, this deprives respondent of a protection to which it might have been entitled if the condition had not been imposed. But that is true of each of the section's conditions. And it is hardly more true with respect to one condition than with respect to others. Mediation, or for that matter negotiation, does not become compulsory because, without them or either of them, injunctive relief cannot be had. Neither does arbitration.
of the federal courts, [Footnote 21] has seen fit to withhold. With the wisdom of that action we have no concern. It is enough, for its enforcement that it is written plain and does not transcend the limits of the legislative power. Cf. Lauf v. E. G. Shinner & Co., 303 U. S. 323.
mistaken view of the section's requirements is not material. Arbitration under the Railway Labor Act was available, afforded a method for settlement Congress itself has provided, and, until respondent accepted this method, it had not made "every reasonable effort to settle" the dispute, as Section 8 requires.
It remains to refute a further basis for the ruling of the Court of Appeals. This was that, in accordance with its previous decisions, Section 8 does not apply when violence is involved. The terms of the Section offer no support for such a view. [Footnote 25] And, if exceptions exist, to find one in the circumstances shown by this record would be to invert the statutory order of things. The purpose of the section is to head off strikes, and the violence which too often accompanies them, by requiring the statutory steps to be taken before the aid of federal courts is sought in equity. Denial of that assistance is the sanction the statute affords to secure performance of the prescribed preventive measures. To give it when they have not been taken not only violates the section's terms. It defeats the purposes they were to accomplish and which, when achieved, make unnecessary invocation of the court's aid.
And the discussion of Section 8 in the Congressional debates shows that, while it would not apply if, on the facts, the complainant could not meet its terms, it was intended to apply when he had had ample opportunity, but refused to do so. [Footnote 29] This is clear not only from Representative O'Connor's "clean hands" characterization of the section, [Footnote 30] but also from the general character of the discussion regarding it. Most, if not all, of the objection was upon the mistaken view that Section 8 would apply even though the complainant might have no notice or knowledge of the facts calling for him to take the conciliatory steps before seeking injunctive relief. [Footnote 31] What has been said above shows this was not the intent or effect of the section. There was indeed no expression of concern for the complainant who, having full opportunity to comply with the section, might refuse deliberately and steadfastly to do so. On the contrary, it appears to have been understood clearly he would be remitted to other forms of relief not touched by the Act.
Petitioners' brief characterizes their action as agreement "to an indefinite postponement." Respondent says "the strike notice was at no time withdrawn, although it was temporarily withheld" until December 28.
In the lower courts and here, this issue was highly controverted. Petitioners say jurisdiction is lacking since the cause of action is one merely for exercise of the general police power in the protection of the railroad's property. The complaint, it is said, does not specify and provision of federal law which requires construction or application, and does no more than aver a general reference to federal statutes, including the Interstate Commerce Act and the statute making criminal specified interferences with interstate railroad property. 18 U.S.C. § 412a; cf. 19 U. S. Virginia, 6 Wheat. 264; Norton v. Whiteside, 239 U. S. 144; Gully v. First National Bank, 299 U. S. 109.
Respondent and the lower courts find the jurisdictional basis generally in the duties imposed upon carriers by the Interstate Commerce Act and other federal statutes, including the criminal statute referred to above. They rely upon such authorities as Ex parte Lennon, 166 U. S. 548; Toledo, Ann Arbor & North Michigan R. Co. v. Pennsylvania Co., 54 F. 730, and Wabash R. Co. v. Hannahan, 121 F. 563.
Cf. the Norris-LaGuardia Act, 29 U.S.C. § 107(e).
Petitioners also urge that the temporary restraining order became void on the expiration of five days by the provisions of 29 U.S.C. § 107(e), and could not be extended beyond that time; hence, the orders continuing it in force were nullities, and that the evidence was insufficient to show they had participated in or ratified any act of violence or of interference with respondent's operations or property.
Cf. 45 U.S.C. § 157, 44 Stat. 582-584, 48 Stat. 1197. Each party selects an equal number of arbitrators who select another or others, but, in case of failure of the named arbitrators to agree, the Mediation Board selects the additional member or members.
The award is made final and conclusive upon the parties, except for possible impeachment of the judgment entered upon it, in judicial proceedings, on grounds specified in the statute. 45 U.S.C. § 158(1), (m), (n), 44 Stat. 584-586, 48 Stat. 1197; § 159, Second, Third, 44 Stat. 585.
It is not necessary to determine whether they are illustrative or exclusive. Respondent's emphasis upon the disjunctive meaning of "either . . . or . . . or" effectually eliminates "every" from the section. It distorts "every reasonable effort" into meaning, in effect, "one of the following reasonable efforts." A similar distortion is its apparent view that the phrase "with the aid of any available governmental machinery" qualifies only "mediation," and not "voluntary arbitration." Cf. the further discussion in the text, infra at note 20 And if the section uses "or" only in the disjunctive, it would be enough either to comply with legal obligations or to make reasonable effort, a view so obviously untenable it has not been suggested.
The Norris-LaGuardia Act was adopted March 23, 1932. 47 Stat. 70. At that time, the Railway Labor Act of 1926 was in force. 44 Stat. 577. Though it differed in substantial respects from the Railway Labor Act of 1934, now in effect (48 Stat. 1185), it contained provisions for the three procedures of negotiation, mediation, and arbitration which, for present purposes, were identical with or substantially similar to those of the later statute. The 1934 changes related principally to the machinery for making the procedures effective, though in some instances it more definitely crystalized legal obligations.
Much of the debate in Congress related to previous railway labor disputes, including the Pullman controversy of 1894 and the shop-craft strike of 1922, and to decisions relating to injunctions which had been issued in connection with these disputes, e.g., In re Debs, 158 U. S. 564; cf. 75 Cong.Rec. 4618-4620, 5472-5479, 5503-5504.
Cf. the debates in Congress, 75 Cong.Rec. 4505-4510, 4618-4626, 5462-5515.
Cf. notes 13 14, supra.
"The answer to that is simple. In seeking a restraining order, a party believed to be aggrieved comes into court, and, under a certain state of facts, which are enumerated in the bill itself, asks for a restraining order. If time has not permitted him or the corporation to avail itself of the existing governmental machinery for the settlement of a labor dispute, he recites that as one of his facts, which is a full compliance, of course, with the provisions of section 8, which makes it a condition precedent that every remedy must be exhausted to settle the strike before the injunction will issue."
75 Cong.Rec. 5464. It was partly for fear of the effects of requiring compliance with Section 8's provisions upon interruption of service that Mr. Beck, who led opposition to the bill, urgently advocated an amendment exempting public utilities. 75 Cong.Rec. 5503-5504.
It may be assumed that the negotiation must be done in good faith, as is true under the National Labor Relations Act, cf., e.g., NLRB v. George P. Pilling & Son Co., 119 F.2d 32.
"The employer is not compelled to avail himself of all three methods; any one of them will fulfill the requirements. Thus, in Mayo v. Dean, 82 F.2d 554, 556, it was held that the employer is not obliged to propose both mediation and arbitration."
Cf. Lockerty v. Phillips, 319 U. S. 182, and authorities cited.
". . . respondent had reached the point where its only recourse was to request an impartial body -- namely, an emergency board -- to hear the evidence and decide the issues involved."
"There is no presumption that this governmental agency would be fair, just, and impartial in the conduct of the arbitration, and, with the experience which the respondent had had in the mediation, it could not be charged with bad faith in refusing to sign an arbitration agreement, where the arbitration proceedings were to be conducted under the same atmosphere."
"Respondent has always insisted upon a fair and impartial hearing of this labor dispute before a body which has no connection with either the Brotherhood interests or the railroad interests, and, to this date, it has been unsuccessful to have its case presented to a body of that character."
When the Mediation Board terminated its services, respondent first suggested submission to "some impartial factfinding commission," but for advisory action only. Later it repeatedly urged appointment of an emergency board under Section 10 of the Railway Labor Act, 45 U.S.C. § 160, 44 Stat. 586, 587, 48 Stat. 1198. Under the section, if a dispute not adjusted threatens in the Board's judgment substantially to interrupt interstate commerce, the Board shall notify the President, who, in his discretion, may create a board to investigate and report concerning the dispute.
Cf. note 17 supra, and text.

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