Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/274/37/
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 10:33:56+00:00

Document:
Justia › US Law › US Case Law › US Supreme Court › Volume 274 › Bedford Cut Stone Co. v. Stone Cutters' Assn.
1. A combination or conspiracy of union stone-cutters to restrain the interstate commerce of certain building stone producers by declaring their stone "unfair" and forbidding members of the union to work upon it in building construction in other states, for which it was extensively bought and used, and thereby coercing or inducing local employers to refrain from purchasing it, is a violation of the Anti-Trust Act. Pp. 274 U. S. 45, 274 U. S. 54.
2. The fact that the ultimate object was to unionize the cutters and carvers of stone at the quarries of the producers did not make the combination lawful. P. 274 U. S. 47.
3. A private suit to enjoin a combination violative of the Sherman Act will lie under § 16 of the Clayton Act where there is a dangerous probability of injury to the plaintiff, though no actual injury has been suffered. P. 274 U. S. 54.
of stone-cutters, and some of its constituent locals and their officers.
Petitioners, Bedford Cut Stone Company and 23 others, all, with one or two exceptions, Indiana corporations, are in the business of quarrying or fabricating, or both quarrying and fabricating, Indiana limestone in what is called the Bedford-Bloomington district in the State of Indiana. Their combined investment is about $6,000,000, and their annual aggregate sales amount to about $15,000,000, more than 75 percent of which are made in interstate commerce to customers outside the State of Indiana. The Journeymen Stone Cutters' Association of North America, sometimes called and hereinafter referred as the "General Union," is an association of mechanics engaged in the stone-cutting trade. It has a constitution, bylaws, and officers, and an income derived from assessments upon its members. Its principal headquarters are in Indiana, and it has a membership of about 5,000 persons, divided into over 150 local unions, located in various states and in Canada, each of such local unions having its own bylaws, officers, and income derived from like assessments. By virtue of his membership, each member of these local unions is a member of the General Union. The members of the General Union and allied locals throughout the United States are stone cutters, carvers, curb cutters, curb setters, bridge cutters, planermen, lathemen, and carborundum moulding machine operators engaged in the cutting, patching, and fabrication of all natural and artificial stones, and the General Union claims jurisdiction over all of them.
them from combining and conspiring together to commit, and from committing, various acts in restraint of interstate commerce in violation of the federal Anti-Trust Act, c. 647, 26 Stat. 209, and to petitioners' great and irreparable damage. The Federal District Court for the District of Indiana, after a hearing, refused a preliminary injunction, and subsequently, on final hearing, entered a decree dismissing the bill for want of equity. On appeal, this decree was affirmed by the court of appeals upon the authority of an earlier opinion in the same case. 9 F.2d 40.
"members were to rigidly enforce the rule to keep off all work started by men working in opposition to our organization, with the exception of the work of Shea-Donnelly, which firm holds an injunction against our association."
Stone produced by petitioners by labor eligible to membership in respondents' unions was declared "unfair;" and the president of the General Union announced that the rule against handling such stone was to be promptly enforced in every part of the country. Most of the stone workers employed, outside the State of Indiana, on the buildings where petitioners' product is used are members of the General Union, and in most of the industrial centers, building construction is on a closed shop union basis.
"unfair." The contractor personally had no trouble of any kind with the union, and no other reason for the strike than that stated above existed. B. F. James, a member and an acting officer of the General Union, testified that the local union, in conducting its strike against a local builder, had no choice in the matter; that they had their orders from the General Union, with which they complied; that there was no difference or feeling whatever between the union and the local employer; that the fight was with the Bedford stone producers, and they were trying to affect them through the local employer.
"Q. And you people have no choice in the matter, you are just complying with the orders from the International [General Union]?"
"A. We have no choice whatever."
"Q. Probably, if it was left up to you people here, knowing this employer as you do, why your organization here, local organization, would not strike on this man?"
"A. I don't believe we would; no."
"Q. But you have got to follow the orders of your international organization?"
of substitutes to take the natural stone's place in the building material market that it behooves the natural stone employers to do their utmost to see that no handicap is in its way, and it is a well known fact that, when any material is known to have labor grievances, it retards that material in the building market, as the building public do not want the stigma on their building that it was built by 'unfair labor,' and they are also afraid of stoppage of work and unnecessary disputes while their building is in course of construction, and no one can blame them for that."
In the Colorado inquiry, the witness James further testified that the strike order did not make any allowance for stone theretofore ordered. "We were trying to affect the Bedford people through the local man."
"Q. So the only person injured would be your own local man, who is your employer, and your personal friend, is that it?"
"A. In a way. If it was finished that way, he would be the only one hurt. We are not fighting on this Denver man. We are trying to force these people through the other subcontractors all over the country."
"Q. You are trying to force the Bedford to employ members of your union to do this work?"
"Q. And, irrespective of who it hurts, that is the object?"
"A. That is the object. It is done from our headquarters."
"Q. Mr. Fernald, or anybody else, they have got to get out of the road; that is the object?"
"A. We are trying to gain this point, irrespective of who it hurts."
that of coercing or inducing the local employers to refrain from purchasing such product. To accept the assertion made here to the contrary would be to say that the order and the effort to enforce it were vain and idle things, without any rational purpose whatsoever. And, indeed, on the argument, in answer to a question from the bench, counsel for respondents very frankly said that, unless petitioners' interstate trade in the so-called unfair stone were injuriously affected, the strikes would accomplish nothing.
entirety; and, when so regarded, the local transactions become a part of the general plan and purpose to destroy or narrow petitioners' interstate trade. Montague & Co. v. Lowry, 193 U. S. 38, 193 U. S. 45-46. In other words, strikes against the local use of the product were simply the means adopted to effect the unlawful restraint. And it is this result, not the means devised to secure it, which gives character to the conspiracy.
Respondents' chief contention is that "their sole and only purpose . . . was to unionize the cutters and carvers of stone at the quarries." And it may be conceded that this was the ultimate end in view. But how was that end to be effect? The evidence shows indubitably that it was by an attack upon the use of the product in other states to which it had been and was being shipped, with the intent and purpose of bringing about the loss or serious reduction of petitioners' interstate business, and thereby forcing compliance with the demands of the unions. And, since these strikes were directed against the use of petitioners' product in other states, with the plain design of suppressing or narrowing the interstate market, it is no answer to say that the ultimate object to be accomplished was to bring about a change of conduct on the part of petitioners in respect of the employment of union members in Indiana. A restraint of interstate commerce cannot be justified by the fact that the ultimate object of the participants was to secure an ulterior benefit which they might have been at liberty to pursue by means not involving such restraint. Anderson v. Shipowners' Association, 272 U. S. 359; Duplex Co. v. Deering, 254 U. S. 443, 254 U. S. 468; Ellis v. Inman, Poulsen & Co., 131 F. 182, 186.
were leveled only against production, and that the strikers (p. 265 U. S. 471) "did nothing which in any way directly interfered with the interstate transportation or sales of the complainants' product," and the decision rests upon the ground that there was an entire absence of evidence or circumstances to show that the defendants, in their conspiracy to coerce complainants, were directing their scheme against interstate commerce. United Mine Workers v. Coronado Co., supra, pp. 259 U. S. 408-409, is to the same effect.
"The mere reduction in the supply of an article to be shipped in interstate commerce by the illegal or tortious prevention of its manufacture or production is ordinarily an indirect and remote obstruction to that commerce. But when the intent of those unlawfully preventing the manufacture or production is shown to be to restrain or control the supply entering and moving in interstate commerce, or the price of it in interstate markets, their action is a direct violation of the Anti-Trust Act."
because of their palpable intent to achieve their purpose by direct obstruction of that commerce."
Respondents cite and rely upon Hopkins v. United States, 171 U. S. 578, and Anderson v. United States, 171 U. S. 604. But of those cases we need say no more than that they involved agreements which neither in purpose nor in necessary result related to or had any direct effect upon interstate commerce.
With a few changes in respect of the product involved, dates, names, and incidents, which would have no effect upon the principles established, the opinion in Duplex Co. v. Deering, supra, might serve as an opinion in this case. The object of the boycott there was precisely the same as it is here, and the interferences with interstate commerce, while they were more numerous and more drastic, did not differ in essential character from the interferences here. A short statement of the case will make this clear.
installation of presses, notified repair shops not to do repair work on the presses, threatened union men with loss of union cards and the blacklist if they assisted in installing the presses, and resorted to other methods of preventing the sale and delivery of complainant's presses in interstate commerce.
"a combination not merely to refrain from dealing with complainant, or to advise or by peaceful means persuade complainant's customers to refrain ('primary boycott'), but to exercise coercive pressure upon such customers, actual or prospective, in order to cause them to withhold or withdraw patronage from complainant through fear of loss or damage to themselves should they deal with it."
"carting, installation, use, operation, exhibition, display, or repairing of any such press or presses, . . . and especially from using any force, threats, command, direction, or even persuasion with the object or having the effect of causing any person or persons to decline employment, cease employment, or not seek employment, or to refrain from work or cease working under any person, firm, or corporation being a purchaser or prospective purchaser of any printing press or presses from complainant. . . ."
"within the class of restraints of trade aimed at compelling third parties and strangers involuntarily not to engage in the course of trade except on conditions that the combination imposes,"
"every contract, combination or conspiracy, in whatever form, of whatever nature, and whoever may be the parties to it, which directly or necessarily operates in restraint of trade or commerce among the several states."
In United States v. Brims, 272 U. S. 549, a criminal case, this Court dealt with a combination of manufacturers, contractors, and carpenters in Chicago, having for its object the destruction of the competition of nonunion mills in Wisconsin and elsewhere by the employment in Chicago of union carpenters only, with the understanding that they would refuse to install nonunion made millwork. There was evidence tending to show that so-called outside competition was cut down, and thereby interstate commerce directly and materially impeded, and that this result was within the intention of the combination, which, upon these facts, was held to be in violation of the Anti-Trust Act.
"To hold that the restraint of trade under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, or on general principles of law, could be enjoined, but that the means through which the restraint was accomplished could not be enjoined would be to render the law impotent."
In cases arising outside the Anti-Trust Act, involving strikes like those here under review against so-called unfair products, there is a sharp conflict of opinion. On the one hand, it is said that such a strike is justified on the ground of self-interest; that the injury to the producer is inflicted not maliciously, but in self-defense; that the refusal of the producer of deal with the union and to observe its standards threatens the interest of all its members and the members of the affiliated locals, and that a strike against the unfair material is a mere recognition of this unity of interest, and, in refusing to work on such material, the union is only refusing to aid in its own destruction. The opposite view is illustrated by such cases as Toledo, etc., Ry. Co., 54 F. 730; Thomas v. Cincinnati, etc. Ry. Co., 62 F. 803, 817 et seq.; Moores v. Bricklayers' Union, 23 Wkly.Cin.Law Bul. 48, affirmed by the Supreme Court of Ohio without opinion, 51 Ohio St. 605; Burnham v. Dowd, 217 Mass. 351; Purvis v. United Brotherhood, 214 Pa. 348; Booth & Bro. v. Burgess, 72 N.J.Eq. 181, 188, 196; Piano & Organ Workers v. P. & O. Supply Co., 124 Ill.App. 353.
But with this conflict we have no concern in the present case. The question which it involves was presented and considered in the Duplex Co. case, supra, as the prevailing and the dissenting opinions show, and there it was plainly held that the point had no bearing upon the enforcement of the Anti-Trust Act, and that, since complainant had a clear right to an injunction under that act as amended by the Clayton Act, it was "unnecessary to consider whether a like result would follow under the common law or local statutes."
"Congress, with the right to control the field of interstate commerce, has so legislated as to prevent resort to practices which unduly restrain competition or unduly obstruct the free flow of such commerce, and private choice of means must yield to the national authority thus exerted."
& Co. v. United States, supra, p. 196 U. S. 396; Vicksburg Waterworks Co. v. Vicksburg, 185 U. S. 65, 185 U. S. 82; Thomson Machine Co. v. Brown, 89 N.J.Eq. 326, 328.
From the foregoing review, it is manifest that the acts and conduct of respondents fall within the terms of the Anti-Trust Act, and petitioners are entitled to relief by injunction under § 16 of the Clayton Act, c. 323, 38 Stat. 730, 737, by which they are authorized to sue for such relief "against threatened loss or damage by a violation of the antitrust laws," etc. The strikes, ordered and carried out with the sole object of preventing the use and installation of petitioners' product in other states, necessarily threatened to destroy or narrow petitioners' interstate trade by taking from them their customers. That the organizations, in general purpose and in and of themselves, were lawful, and that the ultimate result aimed at may not have been illegal in itself, are beside the point. Where the means adopted are unlawful, the innocent general character of the organizations adopting them or the lawfulness of the ultimate end sought to be attained, cannot serve as a justification.
I concur in this result upon the controlling authority of Duplex Co. v. Deering, 254 U. S. 443, 254 U. S. 478, which, as applied to the ultimate question in this case, I am unable to distinguish.
"even persuasion with the object or having the effect of causing any person or persons to decline employment, cease employment, or not seek employment, or to refrain from work or cease working under any person, firm, or corporation being a purchaser or prospective purchaser of any printing press or presses from complainant. . . ."
P. 254 U. S. 478.
These views, which I should not have hesitated to apply here, have now been rejected again, largely on the authority of the Duplex case. For that reason alone, I concur with the majority.
The constitution of the Journeymen Stone Cutters' Association provides: "No member of this association shall cut, carve or fit any material that has been cut by men working in opposition to this association."
For many years, the plaintiffs had contracts with the association under which its members were employed at their several quarries and works. In 1921, the plaintiffs refused to renew the contracts because certain rules or conditions proposed by the journeymen were unacceptable.
"that, if employers will not employ our members in one place, we will decline to work for them in another, or to finish any work that has been started or party completed by men these employers are using to combat our organization."
"After long negotiations and failure to reach a new working agreement, the union officers ordered that none of its members should further cut stone which had already been partly cut by nonunion labor, with the result that, on certain jobs in different states, stonecutters who were members of the union declined to do further cutting upon such stone. Where, as in some cases, there were few or no local stonecutters except such as belonged to the union, the completion of the buildings was more or less hindered by the order, the manifest object of which was to induce appellants to make a contract with the union for employment of only union stonecutters in the Indiana limestone district. It does not appear that the quarrying of stone, or sawing it into blocks, or the transportation of it, or setting it in the buildings, or any other building operation, was sought to be interfered with, and no actual or threatened violence appears, no picketing, no boycott, and nothing of that character."
enemies. They were seeking to destroy it. And the danger was great.
The plaintiffs are not weak employers opposed by a mighty union. They have large financial resources. Together, they ship 70 percent of all the cut stone in the country. They are not isolated concerns. They had combined in a local employers' organization. And their organization is affiliated with the national employers' organization called "International Cut Stone & Quarrymen's Association." Standing alone, each of the 150 journeymen's locals is weak. The average number of members in a local union is only 33. The locals are widely scattered throughout out the country. Strong employers could destroy a local "by importing scabs" from other cities. And many of the builders by whom the stonecutters were employed in different cities are strong. It is only through combining the 5,000 organized stonecutters in a national union, and developing loyalty to it, that the individual stonecutter anywhere can protect his own job.
affected by the order of the union officials. The individual stonecutter was thus clearly innocent of wrongdoing unless it was illegal for him to agree with his fellow craftsmen to refrain from working on the "scab" cut stone because it was an article of interstate commerce.
The manner in which the journeymen's unions acted was also clearly legal. The combination complained of is the cooperation of persons wholly of the same craft, united in a national union, solely for self-protection. No outsider -- be he quarrier, dealer, builder, or laborer -- was a party to the combination. No purpose was to be subserved except to promote the trade interests of members of the Journeymen's Association. There was no attempt by the unions to boycott the plaintiffs. There was no attempt to seek the aid of members of any other craft by a sympathetic strike or otherwise. The contest was not a class struggle. It was a struggle between particular employers and their employees. But the controversy out of which it arose related not to specific grievances, but to fundamental matters of union policy of general application throughout the country. The national association had the duty to determine, so far as its members were concerned, what that policy should be. It deemed the maintenance of that policy a matter of vital interest to each member of the union. The duty rested upon it to enforce its policy by all legitimate means. The association, its locals and officers, were clearly innocent of wrong doing unless Congress has declared that for union officials to urge members to refrain from working on stone "cut by men working in opposition" to it is necessarily illegal if thereby the interstate trade of another is restrained.
"The acts embraced the following, with others: warning customers that it would be better for them not to purchase, or, having purchased, not to install, presses made by complainant, and threatening them with loss should they do so; threatening customers with sympathetic strikes in other trades; notifying a trucking company usually employed by customers to haul the presses not to do so, and threatening it with trouble if it should; inciting employees of the trucking company, and other men employed by customers of complainant, to strike against their respective employers in order to interfere with the hauling and installation of presses, and thus bring pressure to bear upon the customers; notifying repair shops not to do repair work on Duplex presses; coercing union men by threatening them with loss of union cards and with being blacklisted as 'scabs' if they assisted in installing the presses; threatening an exposition company with a strike if it permitted complainant's presses to be exhibited, and resorting to a variety of other modes of preventing the sale of presses of complainant's manufacture in or about New York City, and delivery of them in interstate commerce, such as injuring and threatening to injure complainant's customers and prospective customers, and persons concerned in hauling, handling, or installing the presses."
Pp. 254 U. S. 463-464.
"There should be an injunction against defendants and the associations represented by them, and all members of those associations, restraining them, according to the prayer of the bill, from interfering or attempting to interfere with the sale, transportation, or delivery in interstate commerce of any printing press or presses manufactured by complainant, or the transportation, carting, installation, use, operation, exhibition, display, or repairing of any such press or presses, or the performance of any contract or contracts made by complainant respecting the sale, transportation, delivery, or installation of any such press or presses, by causing or threatening to cause loss, damage, trouble, or inconvenience to any person, firm, or corporation concerned in the purchase, transportation, carting, installation, use, operation, exhibition, display, or repairing of any such press or presses, or the performance of any such contract or contracts, and also and especially from using any force, threats, command, direction, or even persuasion with the object or having the effect of causing any person or persons to decline employment, cease employment, or not seek employment, or to refrain from work or cease working under any person, firm or corporation being a purchaser or prospective purchaser of any printing press or presses from complainant, or engaged in hauling, carting, delivering, installing, handling, using, operating, or repairing any such press or presses for any customer of complainant. Other threatened conduct by defendants or the associations they represent, or the members of such associations, in furtherance of the secondary boycott should be included in the injunction according to the proofs."
purpose of the action taken and in the scope of the combination. The combination there condemned was not, as here, the cooperation for self-protection only of men in a single craft. It was an effort to win by invoking the aid of others, both organized and unorganized, not concerned in the trade dispute. The conduct there condemned was not, as here, a mere refusal to finish particular work begun "by men working in opposition to" the union. It was the institution of a general boycott not only of the business of the employer, but of the businesses of all who should participate in the marketing, installation, or exhibition of its product. The conduct there condemned was not, as here, action taken for self-protection against an opposing union installed by employers to destroy the regular union with which they long had had contracts. The action in the Duplex case was taken in an effort to unionize an open shop. Moreover, there, the combination of defendants was aggressive action directed against an isolated employer. Here, it is defensive action of working men directed against a combination of employers. The serious question on which the court divided in the Duplex case was not whether the restraint imposed was reasonable. It was whether the Clayton Act had forbidden federal courts to issue an injunction in that class of cases. See p. 254 U. S. 464.
in the trade dispute, but by the aid of the vast forces of organized labor affiliated with them through the American Federation of Labor.
"The respondent manufacturers found their business seriously impeded by the competition of material made by nonunion mills located outside of Illinois. . . . They wished to eliminate the competition of Wisconsin and other nonunion mills, which were paying lower wages and consequently could undersell them. . . . The local manufacturers, relieved from the competition that came through interstate commerce, increased their output and profits; they gave special discounts to local contractors; more union carpenters secured employment in Chicago, and their wages were increased. These were the incentives which brought about the combination."
In United Mine Workers v. Coronado Co., 259 U. S. 344, United Leather Workers v. Herkert, 265 U. S. 457, Industrial Association v. United States, 268 U. S. 64, as in Hopkins v. United States, 171 U. S. 578, Anderson v. United States, 171 U. S. 604, Montague & Co. v. Lowry, 193 U. S. 38, and Swift & Co. v. United States, 196 U. S. 375, the questions put in issue were not the reasonableness of the restraint, but whether the restraint was of interstate commerce.
without aiding and abetting the enemy. Observance by each member of the provision of their constitution which forbids such action was essential to his own self-protection. It was demanded of each of loyalty to the organization and to his fellows. If, on the undisputed facts of this case, refusal to work can be enjoined, Congress created by the Sherman Law and the Clayton Act an instrument for imposing restraints upon labor which reminds one of involuntary servitude. The Sherman Law was held in United States v. United States Steel Corporation, 251 U. S. 417, to permit capitalists to combine in a single corporation 50 percent of the steel industry of the United States, dominating the trade through its vast resources. The Sherman Law was held in United States v. United Shoe Machinery Co., 247 U. S. 32, to permit capitalists to combine in another corporation practically the whole shoe machinery industry of the country, necessarily giving it a position of dominance over shoe manufacturing in America. It would indeed be strange if Congress had by the same Act willed to deny to members of a small craft of workingmen the right to cooperate in simply refraining from work when that course was the only means of self-protection against a combination of militant and powerful employers. I cannot believe that Congress did so.
* The contrary view was unsuccessfully contended for by Mr. Justice Harlan, dissenting, in Standard Oil Co. v. United States, 221 U. S. 1, 221 U. S. 85, 221 U. S. 100.

References: v. 
 § 16
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 § 16
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v.