Source: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/364/642
Timestamp: 2013-12-11 21:51:25
Document Index: 395544570

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 2', '§ 152', '§ 152', '§ 152', '§ 1001', '§ 1']

SYSTEM FEDERATION NO. 91, RAILWAY EMPLOYES' DEPARTMENT, AFL-CIO, et al., Petitioners, v. O. V. WRIGHT et al. | Supreme Court | LII / Legal Information Institute
Supreme Court aboutsearch liibulletin subscribe previews SYSTEM FEDERATION NO. 91, RAILWAY EMPLOYES' DEPARTMENT, AFL-CIO, et al., Petitioners, v. O. V. WRIGHT et al.
364 U.S. 642 (81 S.Ct. 368, 5 L.Ed.2d 349)
SYSTEM FEDERATION NO. 91, RAILWAY EMPLOYES' DEPARTMENT, AFL-CIO, et al., Petitioners, v. O. V. WRIGHT et al.
[HTML] dissent, DOUGLAS, FRANKFURTER, WHITTAKER
[HTML] Mr. Richard R. Lyman, Toledo, Ohio, for petitioners.
By a complaint filed on July 16, 1945, in the United States District Court for the Western District of Kentucky, 28 nonunion employees of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad began an action for declaratory relief, an injunction, and damages against the railroad and a number of unions representing its employees. Particularly relevant to the complaint were those provisions of the fourth and fifth paragraphs of § 2 of the Railway Labor Act
or actions then accrued 'in consideration of the sum of $5,000.00 this day paid to the undersigned * * * and the consent of said defendants to the entry of a decree in said action, a copy of which is attached hereto * * *.' The attached decree was adopted by the District Court on December 7, 1945. After detailing and then enjoining a number of specific discriminations on the basis of union status, the decree provided that the defendants
In order to avail themselves of the newly granted statutory privilege, in 1957 the petitioners filed in the District Court a motion under Rule 60(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, 28 U.S.C.A.,
There is also no dispute but that a sound judicial discretion may call for the modification of the terms of an injunctive decree if the circumstances, whether of law or fact, obtaining at the time of its issuance have changed, or new ones have since arisen. The source of the power to modify is of course the fact that an injunction often requires continuing supervision by the issuing court and always a continuing willingness to apply its powers and processes on behalf of the party who obtained that equitable relief. Firmness and stability must no doubt be attributed to continuing injunctive relief based on adjudicated facts and law, and neither the plaintiff nor the court should be subjected to the unnecessary burden of re-establishing what has once been decided. Nevertheless the court cannot be required to disregard significant changes in law or facts if it is 'satisfied that what it was been doing has been turned through changing circumstances into an instrument of wrong.' United States v. Swift & Co., supra, 286 U.S. at pages 114115, 52 S.Ct. at page 462. A balance must thus be struck between the policies of res judicata and the right of the court to apply modified measures to changed circumstances.
What seems plain to us in reason, as to a litigated decree, is amply supported by precedent. In Pennsylvania v. Wheeling & Belmont Bridge Co., supra, this Court was also required to deal with the effect upon an outstanding injunction of subsequent congressional action. The Court had earlier held that a bridge across the Ohio River obstructed navigation in such a way as to be in conflict with certain Acts of Congress regulating navigation on the river. The decree 'directed that the obstruction be removed, either by elevating the bridge to a height designated, or by abatement.' 18 How. at page 429. A later Act of Congress declared the bridge to be a lawful structure in its existing position and elevation. The injunction was dissolved, the Court saying, 18 How. at pages 430432:
That it would be an abuse of discretion to deny a modification of the present injunction if it had not resulted from a consent decree we regard as established. Is this result affected by the fact that we are dealing with a consent decree? Again we start with the Swift case, supra, where the Court held, 286 U.S. at pages 114115, 52 S.Ct. at page 462:
We continue to adhere to it because of the policy it expresses. The parties cannot, by giving each other consideration, purchase from a court of equity a continuing injunction. In a case like this the District Court's authority to adopt a consent decree comes only from the statute which the decree is intended to enforce. Frequently of course the terms arrived at by the parties are accepted without change by the adopting court. But just as the adopting court is free to reject agreed-upon terms as not in furtherance of statutory objectives, so must it be free to modify the terms of a consent decree when a change in law brings those terms in conflict with statutory objectives. In short, it was the Railway Labor Act, and only incidentally the parties, that the District Court served in entering the consent decree now before us. The court must be free to continue to further the objectives of that Act when its provisions are amended. The parties have no power to require of the court continuing enforcement of rights the statute no longer gives.
The record leaves no room for doubt that the parties in fact attempted to conform the consent decree to the dictates of the Railway Labor Act as it then read. We can attach no weight to either of the two factors that led the lower courts to find that the parties had bargained, free of the requirements of the Act, for an injunction serving only their own interests. The first factorthat an independently arrived at contract rather than a decree effectuating rights accorded by the Act must have been contemplated because the unions agreed to equitable relief when their acts were already declared unlawful by statuteignores completely the fact that this was precisely the relief sought in the complaint filed by the 28 plaintiffs and the relief that had been granted after litigation in Steele v. Louisville & Nashville R. Co., 323 U.S. 192, 65 S.Ct. 226, 89 L.Ed. 173, and in Graham v. Brotherhood of Firemen, 338 U.S. 232, 70 S.Ct. 14, 94 L.Ed. 22. The second factorthat the unions agreed to be bound as to bargaining agreements that might later be in effect as well as the contract then in effectignores the fact that the parties, in all likelihood, meant only to cover any later bargaining agreements under the Act as it read at the time of the consent decree.
The type of decree the parties bargained for is the same as the only type of decree a court can properly grantone with all those strengths and infirmities of any litigated decree which arise out of the fact that the court will not continue to exercise its powers thereunder when a change in law or facts has made inequitable what was once equitable. The parties could not become the conscience of the equity court and decide for it once and for all what was equitable and what was not, because the court was not acting to enforce a promise but to enforce a statute.
This controversy commenced in 1945 prior to the time when so-called union shop agreements were authorized by Congress. Act of Jan. 10, 1951, 64 Stat. 1238, 45 U.S.C. 152, Eleventh, 45 U.S.C.A. § 152, Eleventh. Since the date of that law, which we upheld in Railway Employes' Dept. v. Hanson, 351 U.S. 225, 76 S.Ct. 714, 100 L.Ed. 1112, employees and carriers may negotiate that type of agreement, though they are not required to do so. Id., 351 U.S. at page 231, 76 S.Ct. at page 717. Prior to that date, however, a union shop was barred by law in this industry; and a union that discriminated against nonunion members was accountable to them. See Steele v. Louisville & N.R. Co., 323 U.S. 192, 207, 65 S.Ct. 226, 234.
We are all agreed that there is power in the District Coujrt to modify the consent decree, whether or not the power to modify was reserved. United States v. Swift & Co., 286 U.S. 106, 114, 52 S.Ct. 460, 462. I agree with the Court that the union should not be disabled by that decree from carrying out the new union shop policy which Congress has made permissive. Cf. Pennsylvania v. Wheeling & Belmont Bridge Co., 18 How. 421, 435436, 15 L.Ed. 435. Certainly all employees who have joined the ranks since 1945 have no claim to its protection, as they are not included in its terms and gave nothing up in exchange for it. To construe it to include them would as a result of changing circumstances turn the consent decree 'into an instrument of wrong.' United States v. Swift & Co., supra, 286 U.S. 115, 52 S.Ct. 462. But when we set aside the decree as respects those who gave up something of value to get it, we do an injustice. I think the applicable principle is stated in United States v. Swift & Co., supra, 286 U.S. 119, 52 S.Ct. 464: 'The injunction, whether right or wrong, is not subject to impeachment in its application to the conditions that existed at its making.'
45 U.S.C. 152, 45 U.S.C.A. § 152.
45 U.S.C. 152, Eleventh, 45 U.S.C.A. § 152, Eleventh. See Railway Employees' Department v. Hanson, 351 U.S. 225, 76 S.Ct. 714, 100 L.Ed. 1112.
In McGrath v. Potash, 91 U.S.App.D.C. 94, 199 F.2d 166, after Congress passed a statute excluding from the requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C.A. § 1001 et seq., deportation proceedings, the District of Columbia Circuit vacated an injunction against the Government requiring compliance with that Act. There are many cases where a mere change in decisional law has been held to justify modification of an outstanding injunction. E.g., Ladner v. Siegel, 298 Pa. 487, 148 A. 699, 68 A.L.R. 1172 (whether a garage in a residential district is a nuisance); Santa Rita Oil & Gas Co. v. State Board of Equalization, 112 Mont. 359, 116 P.2d 1012, 136 A.L.R. 757 (what federal instrumentalities are exempt from state taxation); Coca-Cola Co. v. Standard Bottling Co., 10 Cir., 138 F.2d 788 (whether the use of the word 'cola' infringed Coca-Cola's trademark); and see Western Union Tel. Co. v. International Brotherhood, 7 Cir., 133 F.2d 955 (whether ordinary strikes are forbidden by the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C.A. §§ 17, 15 note, and what picketing can constitutionally be enjoined).