Source: https://casetext.com/case/united-mine-workers-of-america-v-patton
Timestamp: 2020-07-05 00:48:48
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Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 141', '§ 303', '§ 187', '§ 187', '§ 106', '§ 6', '§ 187', '§ 159', '§ 187', '§ 1', '§ 284', '§ 15', '§ 151', '§ 1732', '§ 1732']

United Mine Workers of America v. Patton, 211 F.2d 742 | Casetext Search + Citator
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Full title:UNITED MINE WORKERS OF AMERICA et al. v. PATTON et al
211 F.2d 742 (4th Cir. 1954)
In United Mine Workers of America v. Patton, 4 Cir., 211 F.2d 742, 746, in an action against a union for damages caused by a strike, it was held that a Field Representative was the agent of the union.
Summary of this case from Nat'l Labor Relations Bd. v. P.R. Mallory Co.
Stuart B. Campbell, Wytheville, Va., and M.E. Boiarsky, Charleston, W. Va. (Harrison Combs, Washington, D.C., on brief), for appellants.
Robert T. Winston, Jr., and Fred B. Greear, Norton, Va. (Greear, Bowen, Mullins Winston, Norton, Va., on brief), for appellees.
This is an appeal from a judgment in favor of plaintiffs in an action to recover damages under the provisions of the Labor Management Relations Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 141 et seq. Plaintiffs are partners who were engaged in conducting a mining operation in the coal fields of Western Virginia. Defendants are the United Mine Workers of America and District 28 of that organization. The basis of the action is that the defendants by a strike at the mines of the Clinchfield Coal Corporation caused that corporation to cease doing business with plaintiffs and that this resulted in the destruction of plaintiffs' business. There was a trial before a jury which found in favor of plaintiffs and awarded them actual damages in the sum of $150,000 and punitive damages in the sum of $75,000. From judgment on this verdict the defendants have appealed. Four principal questions are presented by the appeal: (1) whether the evidence was sufficient to take the case to the jury, (2) whether punitive damages were recoverable under the statute; (3) whether there was prejudicial error in the admission of testimony; and (4) whether there was prejudicial error in the charge of the court.
We think that the evidence adduced was amply sufficient to take the case to the jury with respect to the liability of both defendants for the damages which plaintiffs allege. The facts are that the plaintiffs in the year 1949 purchased from one Willard Moore the mining equipment at the Laurel Branch Mine, a truck mine which was being operated by him on the coal lands owned by the Clinchfield Coal Corporation, and acquired from the corporation a lease on coal lands which would enable them to continue the operation of the mine. The lease was cancelled in October 1949 pursuant to the terms of a cancellation clause, but plaintiffs were allowed to continue the operation of the mine from day to day until Nov. 26, 1949. Clinchfield was operating its mines on a union basis, but was having labor trouble because a number of truck mines upon its property, including that of plaintiffs, were being operated non-union. It is a fair inference from the testimony that the cancellation of plaintiffs' lease was because of this trouble. Upon receiving notice to discontinue mining operations at their mine, plaintiffs inquired of Clinchfield's production manager how operations could be resumed and were told to get in touch with the field representative of District 28 of the United Mine Workers. They did this and entered into an agreement with him to operate the Laurel Branch Mine on a union basis. A collective bargaining contract was accordingly entered into with District 28 and the mine again began operating.
In the course of the conversation with Rush, plaintiffs inquired whether they would have to operate the mine on a union basis and were told that that was a matter for them to decide. Following the conversation they decided to operate non-union and so notified their employees. Similar action was taken by other truck mines; and the union, blaming Clinchfield for this action, called strikes in mines operated by Clinchfield for the purpose of forcing unionization of the truck mines, thinking that they could accomplish this by force exerted on Clinchfield, as the truck mines were on the property of Clinchfield and their product was handled at the Clinchfield docks. These strikes lasted approximately a week, after which the men went back to work but with a threat from the union that, if the non-union operation of the truck mines was not ended within a week, the strikes would be resumed. Clinchfield thereupon notified plaintiffs to cease mining operations and plaintiffs, not having received the lease for which they had negotiated, and thinking that they had no right to continue mining on Clinchfield's property, desisted from further operations and sold their mining equipment to Clinchfield. There is some conflict in the testimony as to whether mining operations were voluntarily abandoned by plaintiffs or whether abandonment was forced by the demand of Clinchfield brought about in turn by the strikes and threats of the union; but when the evidence is viewed, as it must be on motion for directed verdict, in the light most favorable to plaintiffs, there can be no question but that there is substantial evidence to support plaintiffs' contention.
On these facts we think that the case was one for the jury under § 303(b) of the Labor Management Relations Act, 61 Stat. 158, 159, 29 U.S.C.A. § 187(b) which provides:
"Whoever shall be injured in his business or property by reason or [of] any violation of subsection (a) may sue therefor in any district court of the United States subject to the limitations and provisions of section 301 hereof without respect to the amount in controversy, or in any other court having jurisdiction of the parties, and shall recover the damages by him sustained and the cost of the suit."
There was certainly evidence tending to show a violation by defendants of section 303(a) of the Act, 61 Stat. 158, 29 U.S.C.A. § 187(a), which provides:
"It shall be unlawful, for the purposes of this section only, in an industry or activity affecting commerce, for any labor organization to engage in, or to induce or encourage the employees of any employer to engage in, a strike or a concerted refusal in the course of their employment to use, manufacture, process, transport, or otherwise handle or work on any goods, articles, materials, or commodities or to perform any services, where an object thereof is —
"(2) forcing or requiring any other employer to recognize or bargain with a labor organization as the representative of his employees unless such labor organization has been certified as the representative of such employees under the provisions of section 9 of the National Labor Relations Act."
"United Mine Workers of America is a labor organization with approximately 650,000 members who are primarily engaged in mining and processing coal at the mines. District 50 United Mine Workers of America has a membership of 112,000, which is largely made up of workers who convert coal into chemical constituents, such as dyes, drugs, plastics, etc. A part of its charter fees, intiation fees and dues is paid to the United Mine Workers of America. According to defendants' brief, `Its members are part of UMWA, but retain their identity, membership rights and privileges at all times as members of District 50.' In other words, District 50 is an arm or branch of the United Mine Workers of America.
"Thus, while the defendants' brief insists that `members of District 50, UCW and UMWA are not members of one organization,' a fair deduction from the record is that District 50 is a component part of United Mine Workers of America, or at least its agent in organizing workers in businesses other than that of mining coal." (Italics supplied.)
"(b) Any labor organization which represents employees in an industry affecting commerce as defined in this chapter and any employer whose activities affect commerce as defined in this chapter shall be bound by the acts of its agents. * * *"
Defendants argue that they are exempted from liability by the rule laid down in the Coronado cases as adopted in section 6 of the Norris-La Guardia Act, which was interpreted by the Supreme Court in United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners v. United States, 330 U.S. 395, 403, 67 S.Ct. 775, 780, 91 L.Ed. 973 as follows:
United Mine Workers v. Coronado Coal Co., 259 U.S. 344, 393-395, 42 S.Ct. 570, 66 L.Ed. 975; Coronado Coal Co. v. United Mine Workers, 268 U.S. 295, 300, 45 S.Ct. 551, 69 L.Ed. 963.
Section 6 of the Norris-La Guardia Act, 47 Stat. 70, 71, 29 U.S.C.A. § 106, is as follows:
"We need not determine whether § 6 should be called a rule of evidence or one that changes the substantive law of agency. We hold that its purpose and effect was to relieve organizations, whether of labor or capital, and members of those organizations from liability for damages or imputation of guilt for lawless acts done in labor disputes by some individual officers or members of the organization without clear proof that the organization or member, charged with responsibility for the offense, actually participated, gave prior authorization, or ratified such acts after actual knowledge of their perpetration."
"Section 303 of the Senate amendment contained a provision the effect of which was to give persons injured by boycotts and jurisdictional disputes described in the new section 8(b)(4) of the National Labor Relations Act a right to sue the labor organization responsible therefor in any district court of the United States ( subject to the limitations and provisions of the section dealing with suits by and against labor organizations) to recover damages sustained by him together with the costs of the suit. A comparable provision was contained in the House bill in the new section 12 of the National Labor Relations Act dealing with unlawful concerted activities. The conference agreement adopts the provisions of the Senate amendment with clarifying changes." (Italics supplied). Legislative History of Labor Management Relations Act vol. 1, p. 571.
"Section 2(2), 2(13), and 301(e): The conference agreement in defining the term employer struck out the vague phrase in the Wagner Act `anyone acting in the interest of an employer' and inserted in lieu thereof the word `agent'. The term agent is defined in section 2(13) and section 301(e), since it is used throughout the unfair labor practice sections of title I and in sections 301 and 303 of title III. In defining the term the conference amendment reads `the question of whether the specific acts performed were actually authorized or subsequently ratified shall not be controlling.' This restores the law of agency as it has been developed at common law.
"These amendments are criticized in one breath as imposing too harsh a liability upon unions for the acts of their officers or representatives and as too mild with respect to the liability of employers for the acts of their managerial and supervisory personnel. Of course, the definition applies equally in the responsibility imputed to both employers and labor organizations for the acts of their officers or representatives in the scope of their employment.
"It is true that this definition was written to avoid the construction which the Supreme Court in the recent case of United States against United Brotherhood of Carpenters placed upon section 6 of the Norris-La Guardia Act which exempts organizations from liability for illegal acts committed in labor disputes unless proof of actual instigation, participation, or ratification can be shown. The construction the Supreme Court placed on this special exemption was so broad that Mr. Justice Frankfurter, speaking for the dissenting minority, pointed out that all unions need do in the future to escape liability for the illegal actions of their officers is simply to pass a standing resolution disclaiming such responsibility. The conferees agreed that the ordinary law of agency should apply to employer and union representatives. Consequently, when a supervisor acting in his capacity as such, engages in intimidating conduct or illegal action with respect to employees or labor organizers his conduct can be imputed to his employer regardless whether or not the company officials approved or were even aware of his actions. Similarly union business agents or stewards, acting in their capacity of union officers, may make their union guilty of an unfair-labor practice when they engage in conduct made an unfair-labor practice in the bill, even though no formal action has been taken by the union to authorize or approve such conduct."
The argument is made that the strikes here are within the exception of 29 U.S.C.A. § 187(a)(2) quoted above, because the purpose of the strikes was to force plaintiffs to recognize and deal with a union with which they had a bargaining contract; but the answer is that the exception applies only where "such labor organization has been certified as the representative of such employees under the provisions of section 9 of the National Labor Relations Act ( 29 U.S.C.A. § 159)", and there had been no such certification. We know of no principle of law under which we would be justified in enlarging the exception contained in the statute and we are cited to no authority which would justify such action on our part.
While we think that there was sufficient evidence to take the case to the jury on the question of actual damages, we think there was error in allowing the jury to award punitive damages. This is not a case brought under the diversity jurisdiction of the federal courts to enforce a common law liability, where we are governed by state decisions and would be bound on the question of punitive damages by the decision of the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia in United Construction Workers v. Laburnum Const. Corp. supra, 194 Va. 872, 75 S.E.2d 694. There is no diversity of citizenship and the plaintiffs are entitled to invoke the jurisdiction of the federal courts only because they sue on a cause of action created by a federal statute, i.e., on the cause of action created by section 303(b) of the Labor Management Relations Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 187(b), heretofore quoted. That section makes no provision for the recovery of punitive damages; but on the contrary provides expressly that the aggrieved party "shall recover the damages by him sustained and the cost of the suit". (Italics supplied.) "Punitive damages are damages beyond and above the amount which a plaintiff has really suffered, and they are awarded upon the theory that they are a punishment to the defendant, and not a mere matter of compensation for injuries sustained by plaintiff." Washington Gas Light Co. v. Lansden, 172 U.S. 534, 553, 19 S.Ct. 296, 303, 43 L.Ed. 543; 15 Am.Jur. p. 700.
Where Congress has intended that damages in excess of the actual damage sustained by plaintiff may be recovered in an action created by statute, it has found no difficulty in using language appropriate to that end. Thus, in copyright cases, 17 U.S.C.A. § 1, in patent cases, 35 U.S.C.A. § 284, and in anti-trust cases, 15 U.S.C.A. § 15, the right to recover treble damages is expressly given. There is nothing in the language of the statute here under consideration, however, or in its history, that indicates that Congress intended that anything more than actual damages be recovered. In the Senate debate on the bill, Senator Taft said (93 Cong.Record 5060, Legislative History of Labor Management Relations Act vol. 2, p. 1371):
"I think, since the sentiment of the Senate is against the injunctive process, I see no reason why suits of this sort should not be permitted to be filed. After all, it is only to restore to people, who lose something, because of boycotts and jurisdictional strikes, the money which they have lost."
Later in a colloquy with Senator Morse, who was insisting that the effect of the statute would be to inflict unconscionable punishment upon unions engaging in a boycott, and had argued that there was no parallel in other statutes for imposing such liability, Senator Taft said (93 Cong.Record p. 5074, Legislative History of the Labor Management Relations Act vol. 2, p. 1398):
"The Senator asks for a parallel, and I can give him one. Under the Sherman Act the same question of boycott damage is subject to a suit for damages and attorneys' fees. In this case we simply provide for the amount of the actual damages."
In the absence of anything in the act itself or in its history indicating an intention on the part of Congress to authorize the recovery of punitive damages by this highly controversial legislation, the courts would not be justified, we think, in construing it to permit such recovery. In Amazon Cotton Mill Co. v. Textile Workers Union of America, 4 Cir., 167 F.2d 183, 186, which dealt with the same statute, we quoted with approval the language of the Supreme Court in a case involving the Railway Labor Act, 45 U.S.C.A. § 151 et seq., to the effect that, "`The inference is strong that Congress intended to go no further in its use of the processes of adjudication and litigation than the express provisions of the Act indicate'." We are still of that opinion. In the light of the history of recent labor legislation, it is hardly conceivable that Congress could have intended to vest in the courts the power to punish unions by awards of punitive damages. Certainly, in the struggle over this act, which was vetoed by the President and passed by the Congress over his veto, no one ever suggested, so far as we are advised, that punitive damages could be awarded under its provisions.
Over the objection of defendants, plaintiffs were allowed to show that at the time of the effort to unionize the non-union truck mines in early 1950 an attempt was made to dynamite plaintiffs' tipple and that the tipple of the mine of Willard Dotson, who was attempting to operate non-union was dynamited. We think that the admission of this testimony was clearly erroneous and highly prejudicial. It was not shown by circumstantial evidence or otherwise that the defendants or, for that matter, any union member, had any connection whatever with either the dynamiting or the attempted dynamiting. Neither of the incidents had any tendency to connect the defendants with the strikes of which plaintiffs complained or to establish the damages sustained by plaintiffs as a result of the strikes. On the other hand, the testimony was highly prejudicial to plaintiffs, as its admission necessarily created in the minds of the jurors the impression that the dynamitings were in some way connected with the case. It is said that the evidence was admissible as establishing the background of the situation. We think, however, that its effect was necessarily to establish a background of prejudice against defendants and divert the minds of the jury from the real issues involved in the case, and that, in the absence of evidence connecting defendants with the dynamitings, any evidence with regard thereto should have been excluded. 20 Am.Jur. p. 239.
The trial judge admitted in evidence copies of reports made by Clinchfield to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, taken from the files of Clinchfield, showing that strikes in the early part of 1950 were caused by efforts to unionize the truck mines. These reports, the admissibility of which is urged under 28 U.S.C. § 1732 and 1733, were not made as a matter of routine in the regular course of the coal business, so as to be admissible as business records under 28 U.S.C. § 1732, but related to controversial matters necessarily resting on conclusion and hearsay and were clearly inadmissible under the principles laid down in Palmer v. Hoffman, 318 U.S. 109, 63 S.Ct. 477, 87 L.Ed. 645; Gilbert v. Gulf Oil Corp., 4 Cir., 175 F.2d 705; and Franklin v. Skelly Oil Co., 10 Cir., 141 F.2d 568, 572, 153 A.L.R. 156. They were like the accident reports held inadmissible in Palmer v. Hoffman, supra. As said by Judge Learned Hand in United States v. Grayson, 2 Cir., 166 F.2d 863, 869:
"The statute did not mean to make competent whatever the entrant picked up from random sources, although it was part of his business to pick up information where and when he could and make a record of it. The `act, transaction, occurrence or event' which the entrant records must be one of which either he has knowledge, or which he learns from a declarant who shall `in the course of the business transmit the information for inclusion in the memorandum'. `Multiple hearsay' is no more competent now than single hearsay was before."
Defendants requested the court to give the jury the following instruction on the issue of damages:
"With respect to damages, if the jury believe under the evidence in this case and the instructions of the Court that the plaintiffs are entitled to recover against either or both of the defendants, the jury are told that the burden is on the plaintiffs to prove the amount of their damages with reasonable certainty. Expected profits are not the measure of damages recoverable, but if the particular business alleged to have been disrupted was of sufficiently long standing to be considered as an established business, and the factors entering into coal mining were sufficiently stable in order to justify a reasonable belief that they might so continue, then the jury can consider profits realized before April, 1950, not as the measure of damage, but as bearing on what amount, if any, the plaintiffs are entitled to recover in this case."
"If you believe that their mining operation had continued for a sufficient length of time to be considered as an established business, then you may include in your verdict such a sum as you believe would reasonably compensate them for the loss of profits which they would have earned during the period of the lease which Clinchfield had promised them. While the amount of profits earned during the period during which plaintiffs did operate is not conclusive, you may consider past earnings as a reasonable basis for calculation of what the future profits would have been, and in any event, your verdict for actual damages should not exceed the sum of $150,000.00, the amount sued for." (Italics supplied.)
In United Mine Workers of America v. Patton, 4 Cir., 211 F.2d 742, 747, Chief Judge Parker points out that the application of the Coronado rule, upon which defendants rely, to suits of this character was expressly excluded by the above section of the Act and that "The history of the Act shows clearly that the intent of Congress was to apply to suits of this character the common law rules with respect to liability for acts of an agent."
Summary of this case from Garmeada Coal Co. v. International Union, Etc.