Source: http://www.chanrobles.com/usa/us_supremecourt/315/521/case.php
Timestamp: 2020-01-25 08:09:24
Document Index: 688250200

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 2', '§ 2', '§ 2', '§ 2', '§ 6', '§ 2']

The test of the applicability of the exception in such case is whether the objective of the conspirators was to obtain "the payment of wages by a bona fide employer to a bona fide employee," and not chanrobles.com-red
Cross-petitions for certiorari, 314 U.S. 592, to review a judgment reversing convictions of a labor union, and individual members of it, on charges of conspiracy to violate § 2(a) and other sections of the Federal Anti-Racketeering Act of June 8, 1934. chanrobles.com-red
This case comes here on cross-petitions for certiorari to review a judgment of the Circuit Court of Appeals reversing the conviction of Local 807 and 26 individuals on charges of conspiracy to violate § 2(a), (b) and (c) of the Anti-Racketeering Act of June 18, 1934. [Footnote 1] The chanrobles.com-red
The proof at the trial showed that the defendant Local 807 includes in its membership nearly all the motor truck drivers and helpers in the City of New York, and that, during the period covered by the indictment, defendants Campbell and Furey held office in the Local as delegates in charge of the west side of Manhattan, and the other defendants chanrobles.com-red
There was sufficient evidence to warrant a finding that the defendants conspired to use and did use violence and threats to obtain from the owners of these "over the road" trucks $9.42 for each large truck and $8.41 for each small truck entering the city. These amounts were the regular union rates for a day's work of driving and unloading. There was proof that, in some cases, the out-of-state driver was compelled to drive the truck to a point close to the city limits and there to turn it over to one or more of the defendants. These defendants would then drive the truck to its destination, do the unloading, pick up the merchandise for the return trip, and surrender the truck to the out-of-state driver at the point where they had taken it over. In other cases, according to the testimony, the money was demanded and obtained, but the owners or drivers rejected the offers of the defendants to do or help with the driving or unloading. And, in several cases, the jury could have found that the defendants either failed to offer to work, or refused to work for the money when asked to do so. Eventually many of the owners signed contracts with Local 807 under whose terms the defendants were to do the driving and unloading within the city and to receive regular union rates for the work. No serious question is raised by the evidence chanrobles.com-red
To ascertain the limits of the exception is a difficult undertaking. Always assuming the presence of violence and threats, as we must in the face of this record, three interpretations of varying restrictive force require consideration: (1) The exception applies only to a defendant chanrobles.com-red
Confronted with these various interpretations, we turn for guidance to the legislative history of the statute. Pursuant to a Senate Resolution of May 8, 1933, [Footnote 3] a subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Interstate Commerce which became known as the Copeland Committee undertook an investigation of "rackets" and "racketeering" in the United States. After conducting hearings in several large cities, the committee introduced 13 bills, of which S. 2248 was one. [Footnote 4] As introduced, as reported by the Senate Judiciary Committee, [Footnote 5] and as passed without debate by the Senate, [Footnote 6] S. 2248 embodied very general prohibitions chanrobles.com-red
It may be true that professional rackets have sometimes assumed the guise of labor unions, and, as the Circuit Court of Appeals observed, that they may have chanrobles.com-red
(2) The government contends, as we have said, that the test is "whether, under all the circumstances, it appears chanrobles.com-red
We take this to mean that the intent of the owners in making the payment is to be regarded as controlling. We cannot agree. The state of mind of the truck owners cannot be decisive of the guilt of these defendants. On the contrary, their guilt is determined by whether or not their purpose and objective was to obtain "the payment of wages by a bona fide employer to a bona fide employee." And, of course, where the defendants are charged with conspiracy, as they were here, it is particularly obvious that the nature of their plan and agreement is the crux of the case. The mischief of a contrary theory is nowhere better illustrated than in industrial controversies. For example, the members of a labor union may decide that they are entitled to the jobs in their trade in a particular area. They may agree to attempt to obtain contracts to do the work at the union wage scale. They may obtain the contracts, do the work, and receive the money. Certainly Congress intended that these activities should be excepted from the prohibitions of this particular Act, even though the agreement may have contemplated the use of violence. But it is always an open question whether the employers' capitulation to the demands of the union is prompted by a desire to obtain services or to avoid further injury, or both. To make a fine or prison sentence for the union and its members contingent upon a finding by the jury chanrobles.com-red
We are told, however, that, under this view, such a common law offense as robbery would become an innocent pastime, inasmuch as it is an essential element of that crime that the victim be moved by fear of violence when he parts with his money or property. This objection mistakes the significance of this requirement of proof in the case of robbery. Its true significance is that it places an added burden upon the prosecutor, rather than upon the accused. That is, the prosecutor must first establish a criminal intent upon the part of the defendant, and he must then make a further showing with respect to the victim's state of mind. The effect of this rule is to render conviction of robbery more, rather than less, difficult. There is no such restrictive evidentiary requirement in prosecutions under this Act. If the objective that these defendants sought to attain by the use of force and threats is not the objective to which the exception in § 2(a) affords immunity, they are guilty, and nothing further need be shown concerning the actual motive of the owners in handing over the money. On the other hand, if their objective did enjoy the protection of that exception, they are innocent, and their innocence is not affected by the state of mind of the owners. We shall consider in a moment, in point (3) below, the legal consequences which flow from the owners' actual rejection of proffered services. But it needs to be emphasized here that for the owners to reject an offer of services amounts to an overt act on their part. It is conduct or behavior, as distinct from intention or state of mind. It is an event which alters the external situation in which the defendants find themselves. T he latter must then decide whether they will continue to push their demands for the money. Whether or not they are guilty of an offense under this chanrobles.com-red
(3) There remains to be considered the difficult issue which divided the court below. The whole court agreed that the payment of money to one who refuses to perform the services is not "the payment of wages by a bona fide employer to a bona fide employee" within the meaning of § 2(a); it also agreed that payments to one who has been permitted actually to perform the services do fall within the exception. But it divided over the question whether the payment of money to one whose sincere offer to work is rejected constitutes the payment of "wages" to a "bona fide employee." Since the offense charged here is conspiracy, these questions must be put somewhat differently. Thus, there is no conspiracy to violate the Act if the purpose of the defendants is actually to perform the services in return for the money, but there is a punishable conspiracy if their plan is to obtain money without doing the work. The doubtful case arises where the defendants agree to tender their services in good faith to an employer and to work if he accepts their offer, but agree further that the protection of their trade union interests requires that he should pay an amount equivalent to the prevailing union wage even if he rejects their proffered services. chanrobles.com-red
We think that such an agreement is covered by the exception. The term "wages," "bona fide employee," and "bona fide employer" are susceptible of more than one meaning, and the background and legislative history of this Act require that they be broadly defined. We have expressed our belief that Congress intended to leave unaffected the ordinary activities of labor unions. The proviso in § 6 safeguarding "the rights of bona fide labor organizations in lawfully carrying out the legitimate objects thereof," although obscure indeed, strengthens us somewhat in that opinion. [Footnote 12] The test must therefore be whether the particular activity was among or is akin to labor union activities with which Congress must be taken to have been familiar when this measure was enacted. Accepting payments even where services are refused is such an activity. The Circuit Court has referred to the "standby" orchestra device, by which a union local requires that its members be substituted for visiting musicians, or, if the producer or conductor insists upon using his own musicians, that the members of the local be paid the sums which they would have earned had they performed. That similar devices are employed in other trades is well known. It is admitted here that the standby musician has a "job" even though he renders no actual service. There can be no question that he demands the payment of money regardless of the management's willingness to accept his labor. If, as it is agreed, the musician would escape punishment under this Act even though he obtained his "standby job" by force or threats, it is certainly difficult to see how a teamster could be punished for engaging in the same practice. It is not our province either to approve or disapprove such tactics. But we do believe that they are not "the activities of chanrobles.com-red
The jury's task was difficult. The trial lasted six weeks. The jury required two days in which to reach a verdict, and twice during that period it sought further instructions from the Court, particularly with reference to the law relating to labor activity. In such circumstances, where acts of violence naturally would influence the minds of the jury, the instructions were of vital importance, especially as they affected the question of whether the payments which the defendants conspired to obtain fell within the exception contained in § 2(a). The trial judge made a number of statements which were chanrobles.com-red
These instructions embody the rule for which the government contends, and which we think is erroneous for the reasons we have given. Under them, the jury was free to return a verdict of guilty if it found that the motive of the owners in making the payments was to prevent further damage and injury, rather than to secure the services of the defendants. Whether or not the defendants were guilty of conspiracy thus became contingent upon the purposes of others, and not upon their own aims and objectives. Moreover, the charge failed correctly to explain the legal consequences of proof that the owners had rejected bona fide offers by the defendants to perform chanrobles.com-red
The Anti-Racketeering Act condemns the obtaining or conspiracy to obtain the payment of money or delivery of property by "the use of . . . force, violence, or coercion. . . ." To this definition of the offense Congress added two -- and only two -- qualifications. It does not embrace the "payment of wages by a bona fide employer to a bona fide employee," and the provisions of the Act are chanrobles.com-red
I can only conclude that such conduct, accompanied by such a purpose, constitutes a violation of the statute even though the defendants stood ready to unload the trucks in the event that they were hired to do so. Unless the language of the statute is to be disregarded, one who has rejected the proffered service and pays money only in order to purchase immunity from violence is not a bona fide employer, and is not paying the extorted money as wages. The character of what the drivers or owners did and intended to do -- pay money to avoid a beating -- was not altered by the willingness of the payee to accept as wages for services rendered what he in fact intentionally exacted from the driver or owner as the purchase price of immunity from assault, and what he intended so to exact whether the proffered services were accepted or not. It is no answer to say that the guilt of a defendant is personal, and cannot be made to depend upon the acts and intention of another. Such an answer, if valid, would render common law robbery an innocent pastime. For there can be no robbery unless the purpose of the victim in handing over the money is to avoid force. Precisely as under the present statute, the chanrobles.com-red
When the Anti-Racketeering Act was under consideration by Congress, no member of Congress and no labor leader had the temerity to suggest that such payments, made only to secure immunity from violence and intentionally compelled by assault and battery, could be regarded as the payment of "wages by a bona fide employer," or that the compulsion of such payments is a legitimate object of a labor union, or was ever made so by any statute of the United States. I am unable to concur in that suggestion now. It follows that all the defendants who conspired to compel such payments by force and violence, regardless of the willingness of the chanrobles.com-red
Respondents' 48th and 49th requests were rightly refused. So far as they involved a ruling that the obtaining chanrobles.com-red