Source: http://masscases.com/cases/sjc/264/264mass355.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 02:21:28+00:00

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ALDEN BROS. CO. vs. JAMES DUNN & others. W. F. NOBLE & SONS COMPANY vs. JAMES DUNN & others. CHILDS BROTHERS COMPANY vs. SAME.
(2) Ratification of the action of the officers of the corporations in bringing the bills might be inferred,t a vote by the directors or stockholders was not necessary.
No exception lies to the admission of evidence de bene by a master in a suit in equity if the objection to such evidence is not later renewed and a motion made that it be struck out.
The order in which evidence is presented to a master hearing a suit in equity is within his discretion.
Under a prayer for general relief in the bill in a suit in equity, damages may be had for loss inflicted intentionally and for such loss as is the consequential result of the wrongful conduct complained of in the bill.
(7) The final decrees must be affirmed.
THREE BILLS IN EQUITY, filed in the Superior Court on July 26, 1926, August 3, 1926, and August 7, 1926, respectively, by corporations engaged in the purchase and sale of milk and cream at wholesale and retail, against certain named officers and members of the Milk Wagon Drivers and Creamery Workers Union, Local No. 380, a voluntary unincorporated association. The bills alleged that "the remaining members of said . . . [association] are too numerous to be set forth . . . [in these bills], and . . . the names of a large number of the remaining members are to your complainant[s] unknown; and that those herein named fairly represent the interest of said remaining unknown members," who thereby were alleged to be joined as defendants. By amendment to each bill, numerous individual members of the association were joined as defendants.
The bill by Alden Bros. Co. alleged that, in consequence of its refusal to renew a contract with the association, the defendants who were employees of the plaintiff went on a strike which was illegal and was for the purpose of injuring the plaintiff's business; that the defendants conspired to injure the plaintiff, and in pursuance of such conspiracy endeavored by threats and other unlawful means to induce the plaintiff's employees to leave their employment, and endeavored to prevent all persons from patronizing the plaintiff. The bill sought to have the defendants enjoined from interfering with or continuing to interfere with the plaintiff's business; from intimidating, threatening, annoying or hindering the employees of the plaintiff or persons desiring to enter its employment; and from interfering with the trade or patrons of the plaintiff for the purpose of inducing them not to Patronize the plaintiff.
The bills in the other two suits contained allegations that the defendants went on an illegal strike to compel Alden Bros.
Co. to enter into a contract with the association, the contract being on the condition that similar agreements should be made by these plaintiffs; that the defendants conspired to injure the plaintiffs' businesses; and that in pursuance of such conspiracy the defendants circulated false statements concerning the plaintiffs' products, and statements that the plaintiffs' employees were scabs and not members of the union and that the plaintiffs had combined with Alden Bros. Co. to establish open shop conditions; and that the defendants circulated among the customers of the plaintiffs and of Alden Bros. Co. cards asking such customers not to patronize the three companies. Each of these bills sought to enjoin the defendants from interfering with or combining to interfere with the plaintiff's business, and from interfering with the plaintiff's customers for the purpose of inducing them not to patronize the plaintiff.
Further description of the bills appears in the opinion.
have existed for the past 15 years.
Milk Wagon Drivers, Local 380"
meals, $288.44; police compensation, $2,834.90; and hire of automobiles for police, $268.50. The damages found by the master in the third suit were $536.75 for police compensation.
By interlocutory decrees entered in each suit by order of Morton, J., the suits were recommitted to the master, who was directed to report objections and exceptions saved by the defendants to the admission and exclusion of evidence, and to report the facts concerning in what manner and to what extent the directors of the plaintiff corporations authorized the institution of the suits.
The master filed a supplemental report in each case. The facts found by him as to the second of the matters above described are set forth in the opinion. As to the matter of evidence admitted and excluded, the defendants in each case objected to the admission of evidence concerning damages. Mrs. Conaty, mentioned in the opinion, testified in the first suit that she was a customer of the plaintiff; that a man whom she did not recognize came to her house and said he was a union man; that the union was trying to get customers not to take milk so that the union could win the strike; and that union men were not able to work with nonunion men. This evidence was admitted by the master subject to the defendants' objection. Certain evidence offered by the defendants and excluded by the master is stated in the opinion.
The suits thereupon were heard by Morton, J., by whose order was entered an interlocutory decree in each suit sustaining the defendants' objections to so much of the master's reports as related to damages for hiring policemen and detectives and the admission of evidence thereof, and overruling the defendants' other objections. The plaintiff in the first suit waived damages to the amount of $581.
A final decree was entered by order of the judge in each suit in accordance with the prayers of the bill. In the first suit the defendants also were ordered to pay the plaintiff the sum of $60,647, with interest in the sum of $1,485.82; and, in the second suit, the sum of $288.44, with interest in the sum of $7.05. No damages were awarded by the final decree in the third suit.
The defendants appealed from the interlocutory and final decrees in each suit.
In this court, the defendants filed a motion that the first suit be remanded to the Superior Court; and, the plaintiff having consented to remit the sum of $5,000, the plaintiff was ordered to file such a remittitur in the Superior Court, and the motion was denied.
H. R. Donaghue, (P. J. Donaghue with him,) for the defendants.
A. J. Aldridge, for the plaintiffs.
WAIT, J. The several plaintiffs are Massachusetts corporations engaged in the sale and delivery of milk and creamery products at wholesale and retail. Their capital stock is owned almost wholly by the New England Creamery Products Company, a Massachusetts corporation, and their business is carried on as departments of its business. Their presidents and treasurers comprise six of the eight directors of the Creamery Products Company. The defendants are officers and members of Local 380 of the Milk Wagon Drivers and Creamery Workers Union of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Stablemen and Helpers, a voluntary unincorporated association.
The bills were filed on July 26, August 3, and August 7, 1926, and seek injunctive relief against injurious action directed against the plaintiffs in connection with an alleged strike by employees of the Alden Bros. Co. Neither bill was authorized by formal vote of the directors of the plaintiff company. The bills of the Alden and Childs companies were signed by the president, and that of the Noble company by the treasurer, in the names of the respective companies. Their contents were known and approved by the presidents and treasurers of the companies and by seven of the eight directors of the New England Creamery Products Company before filing. No director has ever objected to them. There is nothing in the contention of the defendants that the bills lack authorization and, therefore, should be dismissed. Ratification of the action of the responsible officers by the corporation may well be inferred; evidence of a vote by directors or stockholders is not imperative.
See Knight v. Whitmore Manuf. Co. 248 Mass. 531. H. C. Girard Co. v. Lamoreux, 227 Mass. 277.
We find no reversible error in the admission or rejection of evidence. No motion to exclude the testimony admitted de bene was made subsequent to its admission. The master had power to admit testimony, which, if not strictly competent at the moment of admission, would become competent if other evidence was introduced later. The order in which the evidence was presented was subject to his discretion. He was not bound, at a later time and of his own motion, to exclude it, if the evidence expected to render it competent was not presented or was insufficient. Not infrequently, a party, who has objected to the admission of evidence, desires it to remain in the case when once admitted. Unless the objection is renewed and motion made that the evidence be struck out, the party has no good exception to the original ruling admitting it. Haskell v. Cunningham, 221 Mass. 49, 53. Doon v. Felton, 203 Mass. 267, 271. Commonwealth v. Johnson, 199 Mass. 55, 59. There was evidence sufficient to justify the master's inference that Mrs. Conaty's visitor was acting for the union.
concerning the price paid by the Creamery Products Company for stock of the Alden Bros. Co. and the number of shares of the former. received for stock in the latter company, were clearly irrelevant and incompetent.
The evidence is not reported. We cannot say that the finding of the master that there was a strike and not a lockout was not justified. His finding must stand. Glover v. Waltham Laundry Co. 235 Mass. 330, 334. The situation differs from that dealt with in Walton Lunch Co. v. Kearney, 236 Mass. 310. The strike was illegal. See A. T. Stearns Lumber Co. v. Howlett, 260 Mass. 45, 60, 61.
of damage were set out, and no specific requests appear seeking limitation of evidence of damage because of the difference in the allegations of the bills. In such circumstances we think the prayer for general relief suffices to permit the recovery. See Winslow v. Nayson, 113 Mass. 411, 421.

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