Source: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/350/415
Timestamp: 2014-07-22 20:28:00
Document Index: 646420591

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 3731', '§ 1951', '§ 2', '§ 2', '§ 1951', '§ 6', '§ 17', '§ 52', '§ 101', '§ 151', '§ 151', '§ 3731']

UNITED STATES of America, Appellant, v. NotFound | LII / Legal Information Institute
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350 U.S. 415 (76 S.Ct. 522, 100 L.Ed. 494)
UNITED STATES of America, Appellant, v.
Argued: Feb. 27, 1956.
[HTML] Mr. Oscar H. Davis, Washington, D.C., for appellant.
Appeal was taken by the United States directly to this Court under 18 U.S.C. 3731, 18 U.S.C.A. § 3731.
We noted probate jurisdiction. 350 U.S. 813, 76 S.Ct. 44.
The two counts in question were based upon alleged violations of 18 U.S.C. 1951, 18 U.S.C.A. § 1951, popularly known as the Hobbs Act. The pertinent statutory provisions are subsections (a) and (b)(2) thereof, reading as follows:
Appellees each filed motions for acquittal or in the alternative for a new trial. These the trial court specifically denied. The opinion of the trial court, 135 F. Supp. 162, says nothing as to failure of evidence to support the allegations of the indictment, or as to trial errors. Instead the court relied upon the absence of criminality in the acts charged, and it was therefore logical for the trial court to deny acquittal and new trial.
The court thought persuasive our recent cases which held union efforts to secure 'made work' for their members were not unfair labor practices.
From its view that extortion as defined in the Hobbs Act covers only the taking of property from another for the extortioner's personal advantage, the necessity to arrest the judgment followed. Rule 34, Fed.Rules Crim.Proc., 18 U.S.C.A.
We do not agree with that interpretation of the section. The Hobbs Act was passed after this Court had construed § 2 of the Federal Anti-Racketeering Act of 1934, 48 Stat. 979, in United States v. Local 807, 315 U.S. 521, 62 S.Ct. 642, 86 L.Ed. 1004. Subsection (a) of § 2 barred, with respect to interstate commerce, exaction of valuable considerations by force, violence or coercion, 'not including, however, the payment of wages by a bona-fide employer to a bona-fide employee'. We held in Local 807 that this exception covered members of a city truck drivers' union offering superfluous services to drive arriving trucks to their city destination with intent, if the truck owners refused offer, to exact the wages by violence.
In the Hobbs Act, 60 Stat. 420, carried forward as 18 U.S.C. 1951, 18 U.S.C.A. § 1951, which amended the Anti-Racketeering Act, the exclusion clause involved in the Local 807 decision was dropped. The legislative history makes clear that the new Act was meant to eliminate any grounds for future judicial conclusions that Congress did not intend to cover the employer-employee relationship.
The words were defined to avoid any misunderstanding.
Title II of the Hobbs Act provides that the provisions of the Act shall not affect the Clayton Act, §§ 6 and 20, 38 Stat. 731, 738, 15 U.S.C.A. § 17, 29 U.S.C.A. § 52; the Norris-LaGuardia Act, 47 Stat. 70, 29 U.S.C.A. § 101 et seq.; the Railway Labor Act, 44 Stat. 577, 45 U.S.C.A. § 151 et seq.; or the National Labor Relations Act, 49 Stat. 449, 29 U.S.C.A. § 151 et seq.
There is nothing in any of those Acts, however, that indicates any protection for unions or their officials in attempts to get personal property through threats of force or violence. Those are not legitimate means for improving labor conditions.
If the trial court intended by its references to the Norris-LaGuardia and Wagner Acts to indicate any such labor exception, which we doubt, it was in error. Apparently what the court meant is more clearly expressed by its statement, set out in the last paragraph of note 2 above, that the charged acts would be criminal only if they were used to obtain property for the personal benefit of the union or its agent, in this case Green. This latter holding is also erroneous. The city truckers in the Local 807 case similarly were trying by force to get jobs and pay from the out-of-state truckers by threats and violence. The Hobbs Act was meant to stop just such conduct. And extortion as defined in the statute in no way depends upon having a direct benefit conferred on the person who obtains the property.
The Government has no right to a direct appeal to this Court under 18 U.S.C. 3731, 18 U.S.C.A. § 3731, if the District Court judgment 'was not placed solely upon the invalidity or construction of the statute'. United States v. Wayne Pump Co., 317 U.S. 200, 208, 63 S.Ct. 191, 196, 87 L.Ed. 184. (Italics added.) The presence of any additional and independent ground for the District Court's order is fatal to direct review here. I am convinced that there is such an independent ground for the District Court's judgment in this case. It is evident from the district judge's memorandum opinion, 135 F.Supp. 162, that his order granting the motions in arrest of judgment rested at least in part upon the insufficiency of the evidence to support the conviction. He considered facts not alleged in the indictment, e.g., that contractors in the community had customarily agreed to the employment of labor which allegedly was demanded by appellees, and that the trouble on the particular job was caused by a disagreement between the contractor and labor, not by an attempt to extort. I would therefore dismiss the Government's appeal.
Each of the prior bills had the same purposeamending the Anti-Racketeering Act so as to change the terms which brought about the result reached in the Local 807 case. See H.R.Rep. No. 2176, 77th Cong., 2d Sess.; H.R.Rep. No. 66, 78th Cong., 1st Sess. And see 91 Cong.Rec. 11842, 11843, 11909, 11911, 11919, 11920.